S  H  E  STOV 


>-»mmmmimmm». 


Sm  DIEGO 


S^~^'4-(. 


PENULTIMATE    WORDS 

AND   OTHER  ESSAYS 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

AND    OTHER   ESSAYS 


BY 

LEON    SHESTOV 


BOSTON 

JOHN    W.    LUCE    AND    CO. 

1916 


Printed  by  T.  and  A.  Constable,  Ediuburgli,  Scotland 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


ANTON  TCHEKHOV  (creation  from  the  void)  .  3 

THE  GIFT  OF  PROPHECY 63 

PENULTIMATE  WORDS 85 

THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE        ...  149 


INTRODUCTION 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  Russian  thought  is 
chiefly  manifested  in  the  great  Russian  novel- 
ists. Tolstoi,  Dostoevsky,  and  Tchekhov  made 
explicit  in  their  works  conceptions  of  the  world 
which  yield  nothing  in  definiteness  to  the  philo- 
sophic schemes  of  the  great  dogmatists  of  old, 
and  perhaps  may  be  regarded  as  even  superior 
to  them  in  that  by  their  nature  they  emphasise 
a  relation  of  which  the  professional  philosopher 
is  too  often  careless — the  intimate  connection 
between  philosophy  and  life.  They  attacked 
fearlessly  and  with  a  high  devotion  of  which  we 
English  readers  are  slowly  becoming  sensible 
the  fundamental  problem  of  all  philosophy 
worthy  the  name.  They  were  preoccupied  with 
the  answer  to  the  question :  Is  life  worth 
living  ?  And  the  great  assumption  which  they 
made,  at  least  in  the  beginning  of  the  quest, 
was  that  to  live  life  must  mean  to  live  it 
wholly.  To  live  was  not  to  pass  by  life  on  the 
other  side,  not  suppress  the  deep  or  even  the 
dark  passions  of  body  or  soul,  not  to  lull  by 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

some  lying  and  narcotic  phrase  the  urgent 
questions  of  the  mind,  not  to  deny  hfe.  To 
them  hfe  was  the  sum  of  all  human  potentialities. 
They  accepted  them  all,  loved  them  all,  and 
strove  to  find  a  place  for  them  all  in  a  pattern 
in  which  none  should  be  distorted.  They 
failed,  but  not  one  of  them  fainted  by  the  way, 
and  there  was  not  one  of  them  but  with  his 
latest  breath  bravely  held  to  his  belief  that 
there  was  a  way  and  that  the  way  might  be 
found.  Tolstoi  went  out  alone  to  die,  yet  more 
manifestly  than  he  had  lived,  a  seeker  after  the 
secret ;  death  overtook  Dostoevsky  in  his 
supreme  attempt  to  wrest  a  hope  for  mankind 
out  of  the  abyss  of  the  imagined  future  ;  and 
Tchekhov  died  when  his  most  delicate  fingers 
had  been  finally  eager  in  lighting  The  Cherry 
Orchard  with  the  tremulous  glint  of  laughing 
tears,  which  may  perhaps  be  the  ultimate  secret 
of  the  process  which  leaves  us  all  bewildered 
and  full  of  pity  and  wonder. 

There  were  great  men  and  great  philosophers. 
It  may  be  that  this  cruelly  conscious  world 
will  henceforward  recognise  no  man  as  great 
unless  he  has  greatly  sought :  for  to  seek  and 
not  to  think  is  the  essence  of  philosophy.  To 
have  greatly  sought,  I  say,  should  be  the 
measure  of  man's  greatness  in  the  strange  world 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

of  which  there  will  be  only  a  tense,  sorrowful, 
disillusioned  remnant  when  this  grim  ordeal  is 
over.  It  should  be  so :  and  we,  who  are, 
according  to  our  strength,  faithful  to  humanity, 
must  also  strive  according  to  our  strength  to 
make  it  so.  We  are  not,  and  we  shall  not  be, 
great  men  :  but  we  have  the  elements  of  great- 
ness. We  have  an  impulse  to  honesty,  to  think 
honestly,  to  see  honestly,  and  to  speak  the 
truth  to  ourselves  in  the  lonel}^  hours.  It  is 
only  an  impulse,  which,  in  these  barren,  bitter 
years,  so  quickly  withers  and  dies.  It  is  almost 
that  we  dare  not  be  honest  now.  Our  hearts 
are  dead  :  we  cannot  wake  the  old  wounds 
again.  And  yet  if  anything  of  this  generation 
that  suffered  is  to  remain,  if  we  are  to  hand 
any  spark  of  the  fire  which  once  burned  so 
•brightly,  if  we  are  to  be  human  still,  then  we 
must  still  be  honest  at  whatever  cost.  We — 
and  I  speak  of  that  generation  which  was 
hardly  man  when  the  war  burst  upon  it,  which 
was  ardent  and  generous  and  dreamed  dreams 
of  devotion  to  an  ideal  of  art  or  love  or  life — 
are  maimed  and  broken  for  ever.  Let  us  not 
deceive  ourselves.  The  dead  voices  will  never 
be  silent  in  our  ears  to  remind  us  of  that  which 
we  once  were,  and  that  which  we  have  lost. 
We  shall  die  as  we  shall  live,  lonely  and  haunted 


X  INTRODUCTION 

by  memories  that  will  grow  stranger,  more 
beautiful,  more  terrible,  and  more  tormenting 
as  the  years  go  on,  and  at  the  last  we  shall 
not  know  which  was  the  dream — the  years  of 
plenty  or  the  barren  years  that  descended  like 
a  storm  in  the  night  and  swept  our  youth 
away. 

Yet  something  remains.  Not  those  lying 
things  that  they  who  cannot  feel  how  icy  cold  is 
sudden  and  senseless  death  to  all-daring  youth, 
din  in  our  ears.  We  shall  not  be  inspired  by 
the  memory  of  heroism.  We  shall  be  shattered 
by  the  thought  of  splendid  and  wonderful  lives 
that  were  vilely  cast  away.  What  remains  is 
that  we  should  be  honest  as  we  shall  be  pitiful. 
We  shall  never  again  be  drunk  with  hope  :  let 
us  never  be  blind  with  fear.  There  can  be  in 
the  lap  of  destiny  now  no  worse  thing  which 
may  befall  us.     We  can  afford  to  be  honest  now. 

We  can  afford  to  be  honest :  but  we  need 
to  learn  how,  or  to  increase  our  knowledge. 
The  Russian  writers  will  help  us  in  this  :  and 
not  the  great  Russians  only,  but  the  lesser 
also.  For  a  century  of  bitter  necessity  has 
taught  that  nation  that  the  spirit  is  mightier 
than  the  flesh,  until  those  eager  qualities  of 
soul  that  a  century  of  social  ease  has  almost 
killed  in  us  are  in  them  well-nigh  an  instinct. 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

Let  us  look  among  ourselves  if  we  can  find  a 
Wordsworth,  a  Shelley,  a  Coleridge,  or  a  Byron 
to  lift  this  struggle  to  the  stars  as  they  did  the 
French  Revolution.  There  is  none.  It  will 
be  said  :  '  But  that  was  a  great  fight  for  free- 
dom. Humanity  itself  marched  forward  with 
the  Revolutionary  armies.'  But  if  the  future 
of  mankind  is  not  in  issue  now,  if  we  are  fight- 
ing for  the  victory  of  no  precious  and  passionate 
idea,  why  is  no  voice  of  true  poetry  uplifted  in 
protest  ?  There  is  no  third  way.  Either  this 
is  the  greatest  struggle  for  right,  or  the  greatest 
crime,  that  has  ever  been.  The  unmistakable 
voice  of  poetry  should  be  certain  either  in  pro- 
test or  enthusiasm  :  it  is  silent  or  it  is  trivial. 
And  the  cause  must  be  that  the  keen  edge  of 
the  soul  of  those  century-old  poets  which  cut 
through  false  patriotism  so  surely  is  in  us  dulled 
and  blunted.  We  must  learn  honesty  again  : 
not  the  laborious  and  meagre  honesty  of  those 
who  weigh  advantage  against  advantage  in  the 
ledger  of  their  minds,  but  the  honesty  that 
cries  aloud  in  instant  and  passionate  anger 
against  the  lie  and  the  half-truth,  and  by  an 
instinct  knows  the  authentic  thrill  of  contact 
with  the  living  human  soul. 

The    Russians,    and    not    least    the    lesser 
Russians,  may  teach  us  this  thing  once  more. 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

Among  these  lesser,  Leon  Shestov  holds  an 
honourable  place.  He  is  hardly  what  we  should 
call  a  philosopher,  hardly  again  what  we  would 
understand  by  an  essayist.  The  Russians,  great 
and  small  alike,  are  hardly  ever  what  we  under- 
stand by  the  terms  which  we  victims  of  tradi- 
tion apply  to  them.  In  a  hundred  years  they 
have  accomplished  an  evolution  which  has  with 
us  slowly  unrolled  in  a  thousand.  The  very 
foundations  of  their  achievement  are  new  and 
laid  within  the  memory  of  man.  Where  we 
have  sharply  divided  art  from  art,  and  from 
science  and  philosophy,  and  given  to  each  a 
name,  the  Russians  have  still  the  sense  of  a 
living  connection  between  all  the  great  activities 
of  the  human  soul.  From  us  this  connection  is 
too  often  concealed  by  the  tyranny  of  names. 
We  have  come  to  believe,  or  at  least  it  costs 
us  great  pains  not  to  believe,  that  the  name  is 
a  particular  reality,  which  to  confuse  with 
another  name  is  a  crime.  Whereas  in  truth 
the  energies  of  the  human  soul  are  not  divided 
from  each  other  by  any  such  impassable 
barriers  :  they  flow  into  each  other  indistin- 
guishably,  modify,  control,  support,  and  decide 
each  other.  In  their  large  unity  they  are  real ; 
isolated,  they  seem  to  be  poised  uneasily  be- 
tween  the  real   and   the  unreal,   and   become 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

deceptive,  barren  half-truths.  Plato,  who  first 
discovered  the  miraculous  hierarchy  of  names, 
though  he  was  sometimes  drunk  with  the  new 
wine  of  his  discovery,  never  forgot  that  the 
unity  of  the  human  soul  was  the  final  outcome 
of  its  diversity ;  and  those  who  read  aright 
his  most  perfect  of  all  books — The  Republic 
— know  that  it  is  a  parable  which  fore- 
shadows the  complete  harmony  of  all  the  soul's 
activities. 

Not  the  least  of  Shestov's  merits  is  that  he  is 
alive  to  this  truth  in  its  twofold  working.  He 
is  aware  of  himself  as  a  soul  seeking  an  answer 
to  its  own  question  ;  and  he  is  aware  of  other 
souls  on  the  same  quest.  As  in  his  own  case  he 
knows  that  he  has  in  him  something  truer  than 
names  and  divisions  and  authorities,  which  will 
live  in  spite  of  them,  so  towards  others  he 
remembers  that  all  that  they  wrote  or  thought 
or  said  is  precious  and  permanent  in  so  far  as 
it  is  the  manifestation  of  the  undivided  soul 
seeking  an  answer  to  its  question.  To  know  a 
man's  work  for  this,  to  have  divined  the  direct 
relation  between  his  utterance  and  his  living 
soul,  is  criticism  :  to  make  that  relation  be- 
tween one's  own  soul  and  one's  speech  direct 
and  true  is  creation.  In  essence  they  are  the 
same  :    creation  is  a  man's  lonely  attempt  to 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

fix  an  intimacy  with  his  own  strange  and  secret 
soul,  criticism  is  the  satisfaction  of  the  im- 
pulse of  loneliness  to  find  friends  and  secret 
sharers  among  the  souls  that  are  or  have  been. 
As  creation  drives  a  man  to  the  knowledge  of 
his  own  intolerable  secrets,  so  it  drives  him  to 
find  others  with  whom  he  may  whisper  of  the 
things  which  he  has  found.  Other  criticism 
than  this  is,  in  the  final  issue,  only  the  criminal 
and  mad  desire  to  enforce  material  order  in  a 
realm  where  all  is  spiritual  and  vague  and  true. 
It  is  only  the  jealous  protest  of  the  small  soul 
against  the  great,  of  the  slave  against  the 
free. 

Against  this  smallness  and  jealousy  Shestov 
has  set  his  face.  To  have  done  so  does  not 
make  him  a  great  writer ;  but  it  does  make 
him  a  real  one.  He  is  honest  and  he  is  not 
deceived.  But  honesty,  unless  a  man  is  big 
enough  to  bear  it,  and  often  even  when  he  is 
big  enough  to  bear  it,  may  make  him  afraid. 
Where  angels  fear  to  tread,  fools  rush  in  :  but 
though  the  folly  of  the  fool  is  condemned, 
some  one  must  enter,  lest  a  rich  kingdom  be 
lost  to  the  human  spirit.  Perhaps  Shestov  will 
seem  at  times  too  fearful.  Then  we  must  re- 
member that  Shestov  is  Russian  in  another 
sense  than  that  I  have  tried  to  make  explicit 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

above.  He  is  a  citizen  of  a  country  where  the 
human  spirit  has  at  all  times  been  so  highly 
prized  that  the  name  of  thinker  has  been  a  key 
to  unlock  not  merely  the  mind  but  the  heart 
also.  The  Russians  not  only  respect,  but  they 
love  a  man  who  has  thought  and  sought  for 
humanity,  and,  I  think,  their  love  but  seldom 
stops  '  this  side  idolatry.'  They  will  exalt  a 
philosopher  to  a  god  ;  they  are  even  able  to 
make  of  materialism  a  religion.  Because  they 
are  so  loyal  to  the  human  spirit  they  will  load 
it  with  chains,  believing  that  they  are  garlands. 
And  that  is  why  dogmatism  has  never  come 
so  fully  into  its  own  as  in  Russia. 

When  Shestov  began  to  write  nearly  twenty 
years  ago,  Karl  Marx  was  enthroned  and  in- 
fallible. The  fear  of  such  tyrannies  has  never 
departed  from  Shestov.  He  has  fought  against 
them  so  long  and  so  persistently — even  in  this 
book  one  must  always  remember  that  he  is 
face  to  face  with  an  enemy  of  which  we  English 
have  no  real  conception — that  he  is  at  times 
almost  unnerved  by  the  fear  that  he  too  may 
be  made  an  authority  and  a  rule.  I  do  not 
think  that  this  ultimate  hesitation,  if  under- 
stood rightly,  diminishes  in  any  way  from  the 
interest  of  his  writings  :  but  it  does  suggest 
that    there    may    be    awaiting    him    a    certain 

h 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

paralysis  of  endeavour.  There  is  indeed  no 
absolute  truth  of  which  we  need  take  account 
other  than  the  living  personality,  and  absolute 
truths  are  valuable  only  in  so  far  as  they  are 
seen  to  be  necessary  manifestations  of  this 
mysterious  reality.  Nevertheless  it  is  in  the 
nature  of  man,  if  not  to  live  by  absolute  truths, 
at  least  to  live  by  enunciating  them  ;  and  to 
hesitate  to  satisfy  this  imperious  need  is  to 
have  resigned  a  certain  measure  of  one's  own 
creative  strength.  We  may  trust  to  the  men 
of  insight  who  will  follow  us  to  read  our  dog- 
matisms, our  momentary  angers,  and  our  un- 
shakable convictions,  in  terms  of  our  per- 
sonalities, if  these  shall  be  found  worthy  of  their 
curiosity  or  their  love.  And  it  seems  to  me 
that  Shestov  would  have  gained  in  strength  if 
he  could  have  more  firmly  believed  that  there 
would  surely  be  other  Shestovs  who  would  read 
him  according  to  his  own  intention.  But  this, 
I  also  know,  is  a  counsel  of  perfection  :  the 
courage  which  he  has  not  would  not  have  been 
acquired  by  any  intellectual  process,  and  its 
possession  would  have  deprived  him  of  the 
courage  which  he  has.  As  dogmatism  in  Russia 
enjoys  a  supremacy  of  which  we  can  hardly 
form  an  idea,  so  a  continual  challenge  to 
its     claims     demands     in     the     challenger     a 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

courage    which   it    is    hard    for  us    rightly    to 
appreciate. 

I  have  not  written  this  foreword  in  order  to 
prejudice  the  issue.  Shestov  will,  no  doubt,  be 
judged  by  English  readers  according  to  English 
standards,  and  I  wish  no  more  than  to  suggest 
that  his  greatest  quality  is  one  which  has 
become  rare  among  us,  and  that  his  peculiarities 
are  due  to  Russian  conditions  which  have  long 
since  ceased  to  obtain  in  England.  The  Russians 
have  much  to  teach  us,  and  the  only  way  we 
shall  learn,  or  even  know,  what  we  should 
accept  and  what  reject,  is  to  take  count  as 
much  as  we  can  of  the  Russian  realities.  And 
the  first  of  these  and  the  last  is  that  in  Russia 
the  things  of  the  spirit  are  held  in  honour  above 
all  others.  Because  of  this  the  Russian  soul  is 
tormented  by  problems  to  which  we  have  long 
been  dead,  and  to  which  we  need  to  be  alive 
again.  J.  M.  M. 

Postscript. — Leon  Shestov  is  fifty  years  old. 
He  was  born  at  Kiev,  and  studied  at  the  uni- 
versity there.  His  first  book  was  written  in 
1898.  As  a  writer  of  small  production,  he  has 
made  his  way  to  recognition  slowly  :  but  now 
he  occupies  a  sure  position  as  one  of  the  most 
delicate    and    individual    of    modern    Russian 


xviii  INTRODUCTION 

critics.  The  essays  contained  in  this  vohime 
are  taken  from  the  fourth  and  fifth  works  in 
the  following  hst  : — 

1898.  Shakespeare  and  his  Critic,  Brandes. 
1900.  Good  in  the  teaching  of  Dostoevsky  and 
Nietzsche  :  Philosophy  and  Preach- 
ing. 
1903.  Dostoevsky  and  Nietzsche  :  The  Philo- 
sophy of  Tragedy. 
1905.  The   Apotheosis    of   Groundlessness : 

An  Essay  on  Dogmatism. 
1908.  Beginnings  and  Ends. 
1912.  Great  Vigils, 


ANTON  TCHEKHOV 

(creation  from  the  void) 


ANTON  TCHEKHOV 

(creation  from  the  void) 

Re'signe-toi,  mou  coeur^  dors  ton  sommeil  de  brute. 

(Charles  Baudelaire.) 


TcHEKHOV  is  dead ;  therefore  we  may  now 
speak  freely  of  him.  For  to  speak  of  an  artist 
means  to  disentangle  and  reveal  the  '  tendency  ' 
hidden  in  his  works,  an  operation  not  always 
permissible  when  the  subject  is  still  living.  Cer- 
tainly he  had  a  reason  for  hiding  himself,  and 
of  course  the  reason  was  serious  and  important. 
I  believe  many  felt  it,  and  that  it  was  jDartly 
on  this  account  that  we  have  as  yet  had  no 
proper  appreciation  of  Tchekhov.  Hitherto  in 
analysing  his  works  the  critics  have  confined 
themselves  to  commonplace  and  clichi.  Of 
course  they  knew  they  were  wrong ;  but  any- 
thing is  better  than  to  extort  the  truth  from  a 
living  person.  Mihailovsky  alone  attempted 
to  approach  closer  to  the  source  of  Tchekhov' s 
creation,  and  as  everybody  knows,  turned  away 
from  it  with  aversion  and  even  with  disgust. 
Here,  by  the  way,  the  deceased  critic  might 


4  CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

have  convinced  himself  once  again  of  the 
extravagance  of  the  so-called  theory  of  '  art 
for  art's  sake.'  Every  artist  has  his  definite 
task,  his  life's  work,  to  which  he  devotes  all 
his  forces.  A  tendency  is  absurd  when  it  en- 
deavours to  take  the  place  of  talent,  and  to 
cover  impotence  and  lack  of  content,  or  when 
it  is  borrowed  from  the  stock  of  ideas  which 
happen  to  be  in  demand  at  the  moment. 
'  I  defend  ideals,  therefore  every  one  must 
give  me  his  sympathies.'  Such  pretences  we 
often  see  made  in  literature,  and  the  notori- 
ous controversy  concerning  '  art  for  art's  sake  ' 
was  evidentl}'^  maintained  upon  the  double 
meaning  given  to  the  word  '  tendency '  by  its 
opponents.  Some  wished  to  believe  that  a 
writer  can  be  saved  by  the  nobility  of  his  ten- 
dency ;  others  feared  that  a  tendency  would  bind 
them  to  the  performance  of  alien  tasks.  Much 
ado  about  nothing  :  ready-made  ideas  will  never 
endow  mediocrity  with  talent ;  on  the  contrary, 
an  original  writer  will  at  all  costs  set  himself  his 
own  task.  And  Tchekhov  had  his  own  business, 
though  there  were  critics  who  said  that  he  was 
the  servant  of  art  for  its  own  sake,  and  even 
compared  him  to  a  bird,  carelessly  flying.  To 
define  his  tendency  in  a  word,  I  would  say  that 
Tchekhov  was  the  poet  of  hopelessness.  Stub- 
bornly, sadly,  monotonously,  during  all  the 
years  of  his  literary  activity,  nearly  a  quarter  of 
a  century  long,  Tchekhov  was  doing  one  thing 
alone  :   by  one  means  or  another  he  was  killing 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID  5 

human  hopes.  Herein,  I  hold,  lies  the  essence 
of  his  creation.  Hitherto  it  has  been  little 
spoken  of.  The  reasons  are  quite  intelligible. 
In  ordinary  language  what  Tchekhov  was  doing 
is  called  crime,  and  is  visited  by  condign  punish- 
ment. But  how  can  a  man  of  talent  be  punished  ? 
EvenMihailovsky,  who  more  than  once  in  his  life- 
time gave  an  example  of  merciless  severity,  did 
not  raise  his  hand  against  Tchekhov.  He  warned 
his  readers  and  pointed  out  the  '  evil  fire  '  which 
he  had  noticed  in  Tchekhov' s  eyes.  But  he  went 
no  further.  Tchekhov's  immense  talent  overcame 
the  strict  and  rigorous  critic.  It  may  be,  however, 
that  Mihailovsky's  own  position  in  literature  had 
more  than  a  little  to  do  with  the  comparative 
mildness  of  his  sentence.  The  younger  genera- 
tion had  listened  to  him  uninterruptedly  for 
thirty  years,  and  his  word  had  been  law.  But 
afterv.'ards  every  one  was  bored  with  eternally 
repeating  :  '  Aristides  is  just,  Aristides  is  right.* 
The  younger  generation  began  to  desire  to  live 
and  to  speak  in  its  own  way,  and  finally  the 
old  master  was  ostracised.  There  is  the  same 
custom  in  literature  as  in  Terra  del  Fuego. 
The  young,  growing  men  kill  and  eat  the  old. 
Mihailovsky  struggled  with  all  his  might,  but 
he  no  longer  felt  the  strength  of  conviction  that 
comes  from  the  sense  of  right.  Inwardly,  he 
felt  that  the  young  were  right,  not  because 
they  knew  the  truth — what  truth  did  the  eco- 
nomic materialists  know  ? — but  because  they 
were  young  and  had  their  lives  before  them. 


6  CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

The  rising  star  shines  always  brighter  than  the 
setting,  and  the  old  must  of  their  own  will 
yield  themselves  up  to  be  devoured  by  the 
young.  Mihailovsky  felt  this,  and  perhaps  it 
was  this  which  undermined  his  former  assurance 
and  the  firmness  of  his  opinion  of  old.  True,  he 
was  still  like  Gretchen's  mother  in  Goethe  : 
he  did  not  take  rich  gifts  from  chance  with- 
out having  previously  consulted  his  confessor. 
Tchekhov's  talent  too  was  taken  to  the  priest, 
by  whom  it  was  evidently  rejected  as  suspect ; 
but  Mihailovsky  no  longer  had  the  courage  to 
set  himself  against  public  opinion.  The  younger 
generation  prized  Tchekhov  for  his  talent,  his 
immense  talent,  and  it  was  plain  they  would 
not  disown  him.  What  remained  for  Mihail- 
ovsky ?  He  attempted,  as  I  say,  to  warn 
them.  But  no  one  listened  to  him,  and  Tchekhov 
became  one  of  the  most  beloved  of  Russian 
writers. 

Yet  the  just  Aristides  was  right  this  time  too, 
as  he  was  right  when  he  gave  his  warning 
against  Dostoevsky.  Now  that  Tchekhov  is 
no  more,  we  may  speak  openly.  Take  Tchek- 
hov's stories,  each  one  separately,  or  better  still, 
all  together  ;  look  at  him  at  work.  He  is  con- 
stantly, as  it  were,  in  ambush,  to  watch  and 
waylay  human  hopes.  He  will  not  miss  a 
single  one  of  them,  not  one  of  them  will  escape 
its  fate.  Art,  science,  love,  inspiration,  ideals — 
choose  out  all  the  words  with  which  humanity  is 
wont,  or  has  been  in  the  past,  to  be  consoled  or 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID  7 

to  be  amused — Tchekliov  has  only  to  touch 
them  and  they  instantly  wither  and  die.  And 
Tchekhov  himself  faded,  withered  and  died 
before  our  eyes.  Only  his  wonderful  art  did  not 
die — his  art  to  kill  by  a  mere  touch,  a  breath,  a 
glance,  everything  whereby  men  live  and  where- 
in they  take  their  pride.  And  in  this  art  he  was 
constantly  perfecting  himself,  and  he  attained 
to  a  virtuosity  beyond  the  reach  of  any  of  his 
rivals  in  European  literature.  Maupassant  often 
had  to  strain  every  effort  to  overcome  his  victim. 
The  victim  often  escaped  from  Maupassant, 
though  crushed  and  broken,  yet  with  his  life. 
In  Tchekhov' s  hands,  nothing  escaped  death. 

II 

I  must  remind  my  reader,  though  it  is  a  matter 
of  general  knowledge,  that  in  his  earlier  work 
Tchekhov  is  most  unlike  the  Tchekhov  to  whom 
we  became  accustomed  in  late  years.  The  young 
Tchekhov  is  gay  and  careless,  perhaps  even  like 
a  flying  bird.  He  published  his  work  in  the 
comic  papers.  But  in  1888  and  1889,  when  he 
was  only  twenty-seven  and  twenty-eight  years 
old,  there  appeared  The  Tedious  Story  and  the 
drama  Ivanov,  two  pieces  of  work  which  laid  the 
foundations  of  a  new  creation.  Obviously  a 
sharp  and  sudden  change  had  taken  place  in 
him,  which  was  completely  reflected  in  his  works. 
There  is  no  detailed  biography  of  Tchekhov,  and 
probably  will  never  be,  because  there  is  no  such 


8  CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

thing  as  a  full  biography — I,  at  all  events, 
cannot  name  one.  Generally  biographies  tell 
us  everything  except  what  it  is  important  to 
know.  Perhaps  in  the  future  it  will  be  revealed 
to  us  with  the  fullest  details  who  was  Tchekhov's 
tailor  ;  but  we  shall  never  know  what  happened 
to  Tchekhov  in  the  time  which  elapsed  between 
the  completion  of  his  story  The  Steppe  and  the 
appearance  of  his  first  drama.  If  we  would 
know,  we  must  rely  upon  his  works  and  our  own 
insight. 

Ivanov  and  The  Tedious  Story  seem  to  me  the 
most  autobiographical  of  all  his  works.  In 
them  almost  every  line  is  a  sob  ;  and  it  is  hard 
to  suppose  that  a  man  could  sob  so,  looking 
only  at  another's  grief.  And  it  is  plain  that 
his  grief  is  a  new  one,  unexpected  as  though 
it  had  fallen  from  the  sky.  Here  it  is,  it  will 
endure  for  ever,  and  he  does  not  know  how  to 
fight  against  it. 

In  Ivanov  the  hero  compares  himself  to  an 
overstrained  labourer.  I  do  not  believe  we 
shall  be  mistaken  if  we  apply  this  comparison 
to  the  author  of  the  drama  as  well.  There  can 
be  practically  no  doubt  that  Tchekhov  had 
overstrained  himself.  And  the  overstrain  came 
not  from  hard  and  heavy  labour  ;  no  mighty 
overpowering  exploit  broke  him  :  he  stumbled 
and  fell,  he  slipped.  There  comes  this  nonsen- 
sical, stupid,  all  but  invisible  accident,  and  the 
old  Tchekhov  of  gaiety  and  mirth  is  no  more. 
No  more  stories  for  The  Alarm  Clock.     Instead, 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID  9 

a  morose  and  overshadowed  man,  a  '  criminal ' 
whose  words  frighten  even  the  experienced  and 
the  omniscient. 

If  you  desire  it,  you  can  easily  be  rid  of 
Tchekhov  and  his  work  as  well.  Our  language 
contains  two  magic  words  :  '  pathological,'  and 
its  brother  '  abnormal.'  Once  Tchekhov  had 
overstrained  himself,  you  have  a  perfectly  legal 
right,  sanctified  by  science  and  every  tradition, 
to  leave  him  out  of  all  account,  particularly 
seeing  that  he  is  already  dead,  and  therefore 
cannot  be  hurt  by  your  neglect.  That  is  if  you 
desire  to  be  rid  of  Tchekhov.  But  if  the  desire 
is  for  some  reason  absent,  the  words  '  patho- 
logical '  and  '  abnormal '  will  have  no  effect 
upon  you.  Perhaps  you  will  go  further  and 
attempt  to  find  in  Tchekhov' s  experiences  a 
criterion  of  the  most  irrefragable  truths  and 
axioms  of  this  consciousness  of  ours.  There 
is  no  third  way  :  you  must  either  renounce 
Tchekhov,  osr  become  his  accomplice. 

The  hero  of  The  Tedious  Story  is  an  old  pro- 
fessor ;  the  hero  of  Ivanov  a  young  landlord. 
But  the  theme  of  both  works  is  the  same.  The 
professor  had  overstrained  himself,  and  thereby 
cut  himself  off  from  his  past  life  and  from  the 
possibility  of  taking  an  active  part  in  human 
affairs.  Ivanov  also  had  overstrained  himself 
and  become  a  superfluous,  useless  person.  Had 
life  been  so  arranged  that  death  should  super- 
vene simultaneously  with  the  loss  of  health, 
strength  and  capacity,  then  the  old  professor 


10        CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

and  young  Ivanov  could  not  have  lived  for  one 
single  hour.     Even  a  blind  man  could  see  that 
they  are  both  broken  and  are  unfit  for  life. 
But  for  reasons  unknown  to  us,  wise  nature  has 
rejected  coincidence  of  this  kind.     A  man  very 
often  goes  on  living  after  he  has  completely  lost 
the  capacity  of  taking  from  life  that  wherein 
we  are  wont  to  see  its  essence  and  meaning. 
More  striking  still,  a  broken  man  is  generally 
deprived  of  everything  except  the  ability  to 
acknowledge  and  feel   his  position.     Nay,   for 
the   most  part  in   such   cases   the  intellectual 
abilities  are  refined  and  sharpened  and  increased 
to  colossal  proportions.     It  frequently  happens 
that  an  average  man,  banal  and  mediocre,  is 
changed  beyond  all  recognition  when  he  falls  into 
the  exceptional  situation  of  Ivanov  or  the  old 
professor.     In   him   appear  signs   of  a  gift,   a 
talent,  even  of  genius.     Nietzsche  once  asked  : 
'  Can  an  ass  be  tragical  ?  '     He  left  his  question 
unanswered,  but  Tolstoi   answered   for  him  in 
The  Death  of  Ivan  Ilyich.     Ivan  Ilyich,  it  is 
evident  from  Tolstoi's  description  of  his  life, 
is  a  mediocre,  average  character,  one  of  those 
men  who  pass  through  life  avoiding  anything 
that  is  difficult  or  problematical,  caring  exclu- 
sively for  the  calm  and  pleasantness  of  earthly 
existence.     Hardly  had  the  cold  wind  of  tragedy 
blown  upon  him,  than  he  was  utterly  trans- 
formed.     The  story  of  Ivan  Ilyich  in  his  last 
days  is  as  deeply  interesting  as  the  life-story  of 
Socrates  or  Pascal. 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID        11 

In  passing  I  would  point  out  a  fact  which  I 
consider  of  great  importance.  In  his  work 
Tchekhov  was  influenced  by  Tolstoi,  and  par- 
ticularly by  Tolstoi's  later  writings.  It  is  im- 
portant, because  thus  a  part  of  Tchekhov' s 
'  guilt '  falls  upon  the  great  writer  of  the  Russian 
land.  I  think  that  had  there  been  no  Death  of 
Ivan  Ilyich,  there  would  have  been  no  Ivanov, 
and  no  Tedious  Story,  nor  many  others  of 
Tchekhov's  most  remarkable  works.  But  this 
by  no  means  implies  that  Tchekhov  borrowed 
a  single  word  from  his  great  predecessor. 
Tchekhov  had  enough  material  of  his  own  :  in 
that  respect  he  needed  no  help.  But  a  young 
writer  would  hardly  dare  to  come  forward  at 
his  own  risk  with  the  thoughts  that  make  the 
content  of  The  Tedious  Story.  When  Tolstoi 
wrote  The  Death  of  Ivan  Ilyich,  he  had  behind 
him  War  and  Peace,  Anna  Karenina,  and  the 
firmly  established  reputation  of  an  artist  of 
the  highest  rank.  All  things  were  permitted 
to  him.  But  Tchekhov  was  a  young  man, 
whose  literary  baggage  amounted  in  all  to  a 
few  dozen  tiny  stories,  hidden  in  the  pages  of 
little  known  and  uninfluential  papers.  Had 
Tolstoi  not  paved  the  way,  had  Tolstoi  not 
shown  by  his  example,  that  in  literature  it  was 
permitted  to  tell  the  truth,  to  tell  everything, 
then  perhaps  Tchekhov  would  have  had  to 
struggle  long  with  himself  before  finding  the 
coin-age  of  a  public  confession,  even  though  it 
took    the    form    of    stories.     And    even    with 


12        CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

Tolstoi  before  him,  how  terribly  did  Tchekhov 
have  to  struggle  with  public  opinion.  '  Why- 
does  he  write  his  horrible  stories  and  plays  ?  ' 
every  one  asked  himself.  '  Why  does  the  writer 
systematically  choose  for  his  heroes  situations 
from  which  there  is  not,  and  cannot  possibly  be, 
any  escape  ?  '  What  can  be  said  in  answer  to 
the  endless  complaints  of  the  old  professor  and 
Katy,  his  pupil  ?  This  means  that  there  is, 
essentially,  something  to  be  said.  From  times 
immemorial,  literature  has  accumulated  a  large 
and  varied  store  of  all  kinds  of  general  ideas 
and  conceptions,  material  and  metaphysical,  to 
which  the  masters  have  recourse  the  moment 
the  over-exacting  and  over-restless  human  \  oice 
begins  to  be  heard.  This  is  exactly  the  point. 
Tchekhov  himself,  a  writer  and  an  educated 
man,  refused  in  advance  every  possible  con- 
solation, material  or  metaphysical.  Not  even 
in  Tolstoi,  who  set  no  great  store  by  philoso- 
phical systems,  will  you  find  such  keenly 
expressed  disgust  for  every  kind  of  conceptions 
and  ideas  as  in  Tchekhov.  He  is  well  aware 
that  conceptions  ought  to  be  esteemed  and  re- 
spected, and  he  reckons  his  inability  to  bend 
the  knee  before  that  which  educated  people 
consider  holy  as  a  defect  against  which  he 
must  struggle  with  all  his  strength.  And  he 
does  struggle  with  all  his  strength  against  this 
defect.  But  not  only  is  the  struggle  unavailing  ; 
the  longer  Tchekhov  lives,  the  weaker  grows  the 
power  of  lofty  words  over  him,  in  spite  of  his 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         13 

own  reason  and  his  conscious  will.  Finally,  he 
frees  himself  entirely  from  ideas  of  every  kind, 
and  loses  even  the  notion  of  connection  between 
the  happenings  of  life.  Herein  lies  the  most 
important  and  original  characteristic  of  his 
creation.  Anticipating  a  little,  I  would  here 
point  to  his  comedy.  The  Sea-Gull,  where,  in 
defiance  of  all  literary  principles,  the  basis  of 
action  appears  to  be  not  the  logical  develop- 
ment of  passions,  or  the  inevitable  connection 
between  cause  and  effect,  but  naked  accident, 
ostentatiously  nude.  As  one  reads  the  play, 
it  seems  at  times  that  one  has  before  one  a  copy 
of  a  newspaper  with  an  endless  series  of  news 
paragraphs,  heaped  upon  one  another,  without 
order  and  without  previous  plan.  Sovereign 
accident  reigns  everyAvhere  and  in  everything, 
this  time  boldly  throwing  the  gauntlet  to  all 
conceptions.  In  this,  I  repeat,  is  Tchekhov's 
greatest  originality,  and  this,  strangely  enough, 
is  the  source  of  his  most  bitter  experiences. 
He  did  not  want  to  be  original ;  he  made  super- 
human efforts  to  be  like  everybody  else  :  but 
there  is  no  escaping  one's  destiny.  How  many 
men,  above  all  among  writers,  wear  their  fingers 
to  the  bone  in  the  effort  to  be  unlike  others, 
and  yet  they  cannot  shake  themselves  free  of 
cliche — yet  Tchekhov  was  original  against  his 
will !  Evidently  originality  does  not  depend 
upon  the  readiness  to  proclaim  revolutionary 
opinions  at  all  costs.  The  newest  and  boldest 
idea  may  and  often  does  appear  tedious  and 


14         CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

vulgar.  In  order  to  become  original,  instead 
of  inventing  an  idea,  one  must  achieve  a  difficult 
and  painful  labour ;  and,  since  men  avoid  labour 
and  suffering,  the  really  new  is  for  the  most 
part  born  in  man  against  his  will. 


Ill 

'  A  man  cannot  reconcile  himself  to  the  accom- 
plished fact ;  neither  can  he  refuse  so  to  recon- 
cile himself  :  and  there  is  no  third  course.  Under 
such  conditions  "action"  is  impossible.  He  can 
only  fall  down  and  weep  and  beat  his  head 
against  the  floor.'  So  Tchekhov  speaks  of  one 
of  his  heroes  ;  but  he  might  say  the  same  of 
them  all,  without  exception.  The  author 
takes  care  to  put  them  in  such  a  situation 
that  only  one  thing  is  left  for  them, — to 
fall  down  and  beat  their  heads  against  the  floor. 
With  strange,  mysterious  obstinacy  they  refuse 
all  the  accepted  means  of  salvation.  Nicolai 
Stepanovich,  the  old  professor  in  The  Tedious 
Story,  might  have  attempted  to  forget  himself 
for  a  while  or  to  console  himself  with  memories 
of  the  past.  But  memories  only  irritate  him. 
He  was  once  an  eminent  scholar  :  now  he  cannot 
work.  Once  he  was  able  to  hold  the  attention 
of  his  audience  for  two  hours  on  end  ;  now  he 
cannot  do  it  even  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  He 
used  to  have  friends  and  comrades,  he  used 
to  love  his  pupils  and  assistants,  his  wife  and 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         15 

children  ;  now  he  cannot  concern  himself  with 
any  one.  If  people  do  arouse  any  feelings  at 
all  within  him,  then  they  are  only  feelings  of 
hatred,  malice  and  envy.  He  has  to  confess  it 
to  himself  with  the  truthfulness  which  came  to 
him — he  knows  not  why  nor  whence — in  place 
of  the  old  diplomatic  skill,  possessed  by  all 
clever  and  normal  men,  whereby  he  saw  and 
said  only  that  which  makes  for  decent  human 
relations  and  healthy  states  of  mind.  Now 
everjrthing  which  he  sees  or  thinks  only  serves 
to  poison,  in  himself  and  others,  the  few  joys 
which  adorn  human  life.  With  a  certainty 
which  he  never  attained  on  the  best  days  and 
hours  of  his  old  theoretical  research,  he  feels 
that  he  is  become  a  criminal,  having  committed 
no  crime.  All  that  he  was  engaged  in  before 
was  good,  necessary,  and  useful.  He  tells  you 
of  his  past,  and  you  can  see  that  he  was  always 
right  and  ready  at  any  moment  of  the  day  or 
the  night  to  answer  the  severest  judge  who 
should  examine  not  only  his  actions,  but  his 
thoughts  as  well.  Now  not  only  would  an 
outsider  condemn  him,  he  condemns  himself. 
He  confesses  openly  that  he  is  all  compact  of 
envy  and  hatred. 

*  The  best  and  most  sacred  right  of  kings,' 
he  says,  '  is  the  right  to  pardon.  And  I 
have  always  felt  myself  a  king  so  long  as  I 
used  this  right  prodigally.  I  never  judged, 
I  was  compassionate,  I  pardoned  every  one 
right  and  left.  .  .  .  But  now  I  am  king  no 


16         CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

more.  There 's  something  going  on  in  me 
which  belongs  only  to  slaves.  Day  and  night 
evil  thoughts  roam  about  in  my  head,  and  feel- 
ings which  I  never  knew  before  have  made  their 
home  in  my  soul.  I  hate  and  despise  ;  I  'm  ex- 
asperated, disturbed,  and  afraid.  I  've  become 
strict  beyond  measure,  exacting,  unkind  and 
suspicious.  .  .  .  What  does  it  all  mean  ?  If 
my  new  thoughts  and  feelings  come  from  a 
change  of  my  convictions,  where  could  the 
change  come  from  ?  Has  the  world  grown 
worse  and  I  better,  or  was  I  blind  and  indifferent 
before  ?  But  if  the  change  is  due  to  the  general 
decline  of  my  physical  and  mental  powers — I 
am  sick  and  losing  weight  every  day — then  I  am 
in  a  pitiable  position.  It  means  that  my  new 
thoughts  are  abnormal  and  unhealthy,  that  I 
must  be  ashamed  of  them  and  consider  them 
valueless.  .  .  .' 

The  question  is  asked  by  the  old  professor 
on  the  point  of  death,  and  in  his  person  by 
Tchekhov  himself.  Which  is  better,  to  be 
a  king,  or  an  old,  envious,  malicious  '  toad,'  as 
he  calls  himself  elsewhere  ?  There  is  no  deny- 
ing the  originality  of  the  question.  In  the 
words  above  you  feel  the  price  which  Tchekhov 
had  to  pay  for  his  originality,  and  with  how 
great  joy  he  would  have  exchanged  all  his 
original  thoughts — at  the  moment  when  his 
'  new  '  point  of  view  had  become  clear  to  him 
— for  the  most  ordinary,  banal  capacity  for 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         17 

benevolence.  He  has  no  doubt  felt  that  his 
way  of  thinking  is  pitiable,  shameful  and  dis- 
gusting. His  moods  revolt  him  no  less  than 
his  appearance,  which  he  describes  in  the 
following  lines  :  ' .  .  .  I  am  a  man  of  sixty-two, 
with  a  bald  head,  false  teeth  and  an  incurable 
tic.  My  name  is  as  brilHant  and  prepossessing, 
as  I  myself  am  dull  and  ugly.  My  head  and 
hands  tremble  from  weakness ;  my  neck,  like 
that  of  one  of  Turgeniev's  heroines,  resembles 
the  handle  of  a  counter-bass ;  my  chest  is 
hollow  and  my  back  narrow.  When  I  speak 
or  read  my  mouth  twists,  and  when  I  smile 
my  whole  face  is  covered  with  senile,  deathly 
wrinkles.'  Unpleasant  face,  unpleasant  moods  ! 
Let  the  most  sweet  natiures  and  compassionate 
person  but  give  a  side-glance  at  such  a  monster, 
and  despite  himself  a  cruel  thought  would 
awaken  in  him  :  that  he  should  lose  no  time 
in  killing,  in  utterly  destroying  this  pitiful  and 
disgusting  vermin,  or  if  the  laws  forbid  recourse 
to  such  strong  measures,  at  least  in  hiding  him 
as  far  as  possible  from  human  eyes,  in  some 
prison  or  hospital  or  asylum.  These  are 
measures  of  suppression  sanctioned,  I  believe, 
not  only  by  legislation,  but  by  eternal  morality 
as  well.  But  here  you  encounter  resistance 
of  a  particular  kind.  Physical  strength  to 
struggle  with  the  warders,  executioners,  attend- 
ants, moralists — the  old  professor  has  none  ; 
a  little  child  could  knock  him  down.  Persuasion 
and    prayer,    he    knows    well,    will    avail    him 

B 


18        CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

nothing.  So  he  strikes  out  in  despair :  he 
begins  to  cry  over  all  the  world  in  a  terrible, 
wild,  heartrending  voice  about  some  rights  of 
his :  '  .  .  .  I  have  a  passionate  and  hysterical 
desire  to  stretch  out  my  hands  and  moan  aloud. 
I  want  to  cry  out  that  fate  has  doomed  me,  a 
famous  man,  to  death  ;  that  in  some  six  months 
here  in  the  auditorium  another  will  be  master. 
I  want  to  cry  out  that  I  am  poisoned  ;  that  new 
ideas  that  I  did  not  know  before  have  poisoned 
the  last  days  of  my  life,  and  sting  my  brain 
incessantly  like  mosquitoes.  At  that  moment 
my  position  seems  so  terrible  to  me  that  I  want 
all  my  students  to  be  terrified,  to  jump  from 
their  seats  and  rush  panic-stricken  to  the  door, 
shrieking  in  despair.'  The  professor's  argu- 
ments will  hardly  move  any  one.  Indeed  I  do 
not  know  if  there  is  any  argument  in  those 
words.  But  this  awful,  inhuman  moan.  .  .  . 
Imagine  the  picture  :  a  bald,  ugly  old  man, 
with  trembling  hands,  and  twisted  mouth,  and 
skinny  neck,  eyes  mad  with  fear,  wallowing  like 
a  beast  on  the  ground  and  wailing,  wailing, 
wailing.  .  .  .  What  does  he  want  ?  He  had 
lived  a  long  and  interesting  life  ;  now  he  had 
only  to  round  it  off  nicely,  with  all  possible 
calm,  quietly  and  solemnly  to  take  leave  of  this 
earthly  existence.  Instead  he  rends  himself, 
and  flings  himself  about,  calls  almost  the  whole 
universe  to  judgment,  and  clutches  convulsively 
at  the  few  days  left  to  him.  And  Tchekhov — 
Avhat  did  Tchekhov  do  ?     Instead  of  passing 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         19 

by  on  the  other  side,  he  supports  the  prodigious 
monster,  devotes  pages  and  pages  to  the  '  ex- 
periences of  his  soul,'  and  gradually  brings  the 
reader  to  a  point  at  which,  instead  of  a  natural 
and  lawful  sense  of  indignation,  unprofitable 
and  dangerous  sympathies  for  the  decomposing, 
decaying  creature  are  awakened  in  his  heart. 
But  every  one  knows  that  it  is  impossible  to 
help  the  professor  ;  and  if  it  is  impossible  to 
help,  then  it  follows  we  must  forget.  That  is 
as  plain  as  a  b  c.  What  use  or  what  meaning 
could  there  be  in  the  endless  picturing — daubing, 
as  Tolstoi  would  say — of  the  intolerable  pains 
of  the  agony  which  inevitably  leads  to  death  ? 
If  the  professor's  '  new  '  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings shone  bright  with  beauty,  nobility  or 
heroism,  the  case  would  be  different.  The 
reader  could  learn  something  from  it.  But 
Tchekhov's  story  shows  that  these  qualities 
belonged  to  his  hero's  old  thoughts.  Now 
that  his  illness  has  begun,  there  has  sprung  up 
within  him  a  revulsion  from  everything  which 
even  remotely  resembles  a  lofty  feeling.  When 
his  pupil  Katy  turns  to  him  for  advice  what  she 
should  do,  the  famous  scholar,  the  friend  of 
Pirogov,  Kavelin  and  Nekrassov,  who  had 
taught  so  many  generations  of  young  men,  does 
not  know  what  to  answer.  Absurdly  he  chooses 
from  his  memory  a  whole  scries  of  pleasant- 
sounding  words  ;  but  they  have  lost  all  mean- 
ing for  him.  What  answer  shall  he  give  ?  he 
asks  himself.     '  It  is  easy  to  say,   Work,   or 


20        CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

divide  your  property  among  the  poor,  or  know 
yourself,  and  because  it  is  easy,  I  do  not  know 
what  to  answer.'  Katy,  still  young,  healthy 
and  beautiful,  has  by  Tchekhov's  offices  fallen 
like  the  professor  into  a  trap  from  which  no 
human  power  can  deliver  her.  From  the 
moment  that  she  knew  hopelessness,  she  had 
won  all  the  author's  sympathy.  While  a 
person  is  settled  to  some  work,  while  he  has 
a  future  of  some  kind  before  him,  Tchekhov 
is  utterly  indifferent  to  him.  If  he  does  describe 
him,  then  he  usually  does  it  hastily  and  in  a 
tone  of  scornful  irony.  But  when  he  is  en- 
tangled, and  so  entangled  that  he  cannot  be 
disentangled  by  any  means,  then  Tchekhov 
begins  to  wake  up.  Colour,  energy,  creative 
force,  insj)iration  make  their  appearance. 
Therein  perhaps  lies  the  secret  of  his  political 
indifferentism.  Notwithstanding  all  his  dis- 
trust of  projects  for  a  brighter  future,  Tchekhov 
like  Dostoevsky  was  evidently  not  wholly  con- 
vinced that  social  reforms  and  social  science 
were  important.  However  difficult  the  social 
question  may  be,  still  it  may  be  solved.  Some 
day,  perhaps  people  will  so  arrange  themselves 
on  the  earth  as  to  live  and  die  without  suffer- 
ing :  further  than  that  ideal  humanity  cannot 
go.  Perhaps  the  authors  of  stout  volumes  on 
Progress  do  guess  and  foresee  something.  But 
just  for  that  reason  their  work  is  alien  to 
Tchekhov.  At  first  by  instinct,  then  con- 
sciously, he  was  attracted  to  problems  which 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         21 

are  by  essence  insoluble  like  that  presented  in 
The  Tedious  Story  :  there  you  have  helpless- 
ness, sickness,  the  prospect  of  inevitable  death, 
and  no  hope  whatever  to  change  the  situation 
by  a  hair.  This  infatuation,  whether  conscious 
or  instinctive,  clearly  runs  counter  to  the 
demands  of  common  sense  and  normal  will. 
But  there  is  nothing  else  to  expect  from 
Tchekhov,  an  overstrained  man.  Every  one 
knows,  or  has  heard,  of  hopelessness.  On  every 
side,  before  our  very  eyes,  are  happening  terrible 
and  intolerable  tragedies,  and  if  every  doomed 
man  were  to  raise  such  an  awful  alarm  about 
his  destruction  as  Nicolai  Stepanovich,  life 
would  become  an  inferno ;  Nicolai  Stepano- 
vich must  not  cry  his  sufferings  aloud  over  the 
world,  but  be  careful  to  trouble  people  as  little 
as  possible.  And  Tchekhov  should  have  assisted 
this  reputable  endeavour  by  every  means  in 
his  power.  As  though  there  were  not  thou- 
sands of  tedious  stories  in  the  world — they 
cannot  be  counted  !  And  above  all  stories  of 
the  kind  that  Tchekhov  tells  should  be  hidden 
with  special  care  from  human  eyes.  We  have 
here  to  do  with  the  decomposition  of  a  living 
oroanism.  What  should  we  say  to  a  man  who 
would  prevent  corpses  from  being  buried,  and 
would  dig  decaying  bodies  from  the  grave,  even 
though  it  were  on  the  ground,  or  rather  on  the 
pretext,  that  they  were  the  bodies  of  his  inti- 
mate friends,  even  famous  men  of  reputation 
and  genius  ?     Such  an  occupation  would  rouse 


22         CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

in  a  normal  and  healthy  mind  nothing  but 
disgust  and  terror.  Once  upon  a  time,  accord- 
ing to  popular  superstition,  sorcerers,  necro- 
mancers and  wizards  kept  company  with  the 
dead,  and  found  a  certain  pleasure  or  even  a 
real  satisfaction  in  that  ghastly  occupation. 
But  they  generally  hid  themselves  away  from 
mankind  in  forests  and  caves,  or  betook  them- 
selves to  deserts  where  they  might  in  isolation 
surrender  themselves  to  their  unnatural  in- 
clinations ;  and  if  their  deeds  were  eventually 
brought  to  light,  healthy  men  requited  them 
with  the  stake,  the  gallows,  and  the  rack.  The 
worst  kind  of  that  which  is  called  evil,  as  a 
rule,  had  for  its  source  and  origin  an  interest 
and  taste  for  carrion.  Man  forgave  every 
crime — cruelty,  violence,  murder ;  but  he  never 
forgave  the  unmotived  love  of  death  and  the 
seeking  of  its  secret.  In  this  matter  modern 
times,  being  free  from  prejudices,  have  advanced 
little  from  the  Middle  Ages.  Perhaps  the  only 
difference  is  that  we,  engaged  in  practical  affairs, 
have  lost  the  natural  Jlair  for  good  and  evil. 
Theoretically  we  are  even  convinced  that  in 
our  time  there  are  not  and  cannot  be  wizards 
and  necromancers.  Our  confidence  and  care- 
lessness in  this  reached  such  a  point,  that  almost 
everybody  saw  even  in  Dostoevsky  only  an 
artist  and  a  publicist,  and  seriously  discussed 
with  him  whether  the  Russian  peasant  needed 
to  be  flogged  and  whether  we  ought  to  lay  hands 
on  Constantinople. 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID        23 

Mihailovsky  alone  vaguely  conjectured  what 
it  all  might  be  when  he  called  the  author  of 
The  Brothers  Karamazov  a  '  treasure-digger.'  I 
say  he  '  dimly  conjectured,  because  I  think 
that  the  deceased  critic  made  the  remark  partly 
in  allegory,  even  in  joke.  But  none  of  Dosto- 
evsky's  other  critics  made,  even  by  accident, 
a  truer  slip  of  the  pen.  Tchekhov,  too,  was 
a  '  treasure-digger,'  a  sorcerer,  a  necromancer, 
an  adept  in  the  black  art ;  and  this  explains 
his  singular  infatuation  for  death,  decay  and 
hopelessness. 

Tchekhov  was  not  of  course  the  only  writer 
to  make  death  the  subject  of  his  works.  But 
not  the  theme  is  important  but  the  manner  of 
its  treatment.  Tchekhov  understands  that.  '  In 
all  the  thoughts,  feelings,  and  ideas,'  he  says, 
'  [which]  I  form  about  anything,  there  is  wanting 
the  something  universal  which  could  bind  all 
these  together  in  one  whole.  Each  feeling  and 
each  thought  lives  detached  in  me,  and  in  all 
my  opinions  about  science,  the  theatre,  litera- 
ture, and  my  pupils,  and  in  all  the  little  pictures 
which  my  imagination  paints,  not  even  the 
most  cunning  analyst  will  discover  what  is 
called  the  general  idea,  or  the  god  of  the  living 
man.  And  if  this  is  not  there,  then  nothing  is 
there.  In  poverty  such  as  this,  a  serious  in- 
firmity, fear  of  death,  influence  of  circumstances 
and  people  would  have  been  enough  to  over- 
throw and  shatter  all  that  I  formerly  considered 
as  my  conception  of  the  world,  and  all  wherein 


24         CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

I  saw  the  meaning  and  joy  of  my  life.  .  .  .' 
In  these  words  one  of  the '  newest '  of  Tchekhov's 
ideas  finds  expression,  one  by  which  the  whole 
of  his  subsequent  creation  is  defined.  It  is 
expressed  in  a  modest,  apologetic  form  :  a  man 
confesses  that  he  is  unable  to  subordinate  his 
thoughts  to  a  higher  idea,  and  in  that  inability 
he  sees  his  weakness.  This  was  enough  to 
avert  from  him  to  some  extent  the  thunders 
of  criticism  and  the  judgment  of  public  opinion. 
We  readily  forgive  the  repentant  sinner  !  But 
it  is  an  unprofitable  clemency  :  to  expiate  one's 
guilt,  it  is  not  enough  to  confess  it.  What  was 
the  good  of  Tchekhov's  putting  on  sackcloth 
and  ashes  and  publicly  confessing  his  guilt,  if 
he  was  inwardly  unchanged  ?  If,  while  his 
words  acknowledged  the  general  idea  as  god 
(without  a  capital,  indeed),  he  did  nothing  what- 
ever for  it  ?  In  words  he  burns  incense  to  god, 
in  deed  he  curses  him.  Before  his  disease  a 
conception  of  the  world  brought  him  happiness, 
now  it  had  shattered  into  fragments.  Is  it  not 
natural  to  ask  whether  the  conception  actually 
did  ever  bring  him  happiness  ?  Perhaps  the 
happiness  had  its  own  independent  origin,  and 
the  conception  was  invited  only  as  a  general 
to  a  wedding,  for  outward  show,  and  never 
played  any  essential  part.  Tchekhov  tells  us 
circumstantially  what  joys  the  professor  found 
in  his  scientific  work,  his  lectures  to  the  students, 
his  family,  and  in  a  good  dinner.  In  all  these 
were  present  together  the   conception   of   the 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         25 

world  and  the  idea,  and  they  did  not  take  away 
from,  but  as  it  were  embellished  life  ;  so  that 
it  seemed  that  he  was  working  for  the  ideal,  as 
well  as  creating  a  family  and  dining.  But  now, 
when  for  the  same  ideal's  sake  he  has  to  remain 
inactive,  to  suffer,  to  remain  awake  of  nights, 
to  swallow  with  effort  food  that  has  become 
loathsome  to  him — the  conception  of  the  world 
is  shattered  into  fragments  !  And  it  amounts 
to  this,  that  a  conception  with  a  dinner  is  right, 
and  a  dinner  without  a  conception  equally 
right — this  needs  no  argument — and  a  con- 
ception an  undfilr  sich  is  of  no  value  whatever. 
Here  is  the  essence  of  the  words  quoted  from 
Tchekhov.  He  confesses  with  horror  the  pre- 
sence within  him  of  that  '  new  '  idea.  It  seems 
to  him  that  he  alone  of  all  men  is  so  weak  and 
insignificant,  that  the  others  .  .  .  well,  they 
need  only  ideals  and  conceptions.  And  so  it 
is,  surely,  if  we  may  believe  what  people  write 
in  books.  Tchekhov  plagues,  tortures  and 
worries  himself  in  every  possible  way,  but  he 
can  alter  nothing  ;  nay  worse,  conceptions  and 
ideas,  towards  which  a  great  many  people  be- 
have quite  carelessly — after  all,  these  innocent 
things  do  not  merit  any  other  attitude — in 
Tchekhov  become  the  objects  of  bitter,  in- 
exorable, and  merciless  hatred.  He  cannot  free 
himself  at  one  single  stroke  from  the  power  of 
ideas  :  therefore  he  begins  a  long,  slow  and 
stubborn  war,  I  would  call  it  a  guerilla  war, 
against  the  tyrant  who  had  enslaved  him.     The 


26         CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

whole  history  and  the  separate  episodes  of  his 
struggle  are  of  absorbing  interest,  because  the 
most  conspicuous  representatives  of  literature 
have  hitherto  been  convinced  that  ideas  have 
a  magical  power.  What  are  the  majority  of 
writers  doing  but  constructing  conceptions  of 
the  world — and  believing  that  they  are  en- 
gaged in  a  work  of  extraordinary  importance 
and  sanctity  ?  Tchekhov  offended  very  many 
literary  men.  If  his  punishment  was  com- 
paratively slight,  that  was  because  he  was  very 
cautious,  and  waged  war  with  the  air  of  bringing 
tribute  to  the  enemy,  and  secondly,  because  to 
talent  much  is  forgiven. 


IV 

The  content  of  The  Tedious  Story  thus  reduces 
to  the  fact  that  the  professor,  expressing  his 
'  new '  thoughts,  in  essence  declares  that  he 
finds  it  impossible  to  acknowledge  the  power 
of  the  '  idea  '  over  himself,  or  conscientiously  to 
fulfil  that  which  men  consider  the  supreme 
purpose,  and  in  the  service  whereof  they  see  the 
mission,  the  sacred  mission  of  man.  '  God  be 
my  judge,  I  haven't  courage  enough  to  act 
according  to  my  conscience,'  such  is  the  only 
answer  which  Tchekhov  finds  in  his  soul  to 
all  demands  for  a  '  conception.'  This  attitude 
towards  '  conceptions  '  becomes  second  nature 
with  Tchekhov.  A  conception  makes  demands  ; 
a  man  acknowledges  the  justice  of  these  demands 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         27 

and  methodically  satisfies  none  of  them.  More- 
over, the  justice  of  the  demands  meets  with  less 
and  less  acknowledgment  from  him.  In  The 
Tedious  Story  the  idea  still  judges  the  man  and 
tortures  him  with  the  mercilessness  peculiar  to 
all  things  inanimate.  Exactly  like  a  splinter 
stuck  into  a  living  body,  the  idea,  alien  and 
hostile,  mercilessly  performs  its  high  mission, 
until  at  length  the  man  firmly  resolves  to  draw 
the  splinter  out  of  his  flesh,  however  painful 
that  difficult  operation  may  be.  In  Ivanov 
the  role  of  the  idea  is  already  changed.  There 
not  the  idea  persecutes  Tchekhov,  but  Tchekhov 
the  idea,  and  with  the  subtlest  division  and 
contempt.  The  voice  of  the  living  nature  rises 
above  the  artificial  habits  of  civilisation.  True, 
the  struggle  still  continues,  if  you  will,  with 
alternating  fortunes.  But  the  old  humility  is 
no  more.  More  and  more  Tchekhov  emancipates 
himself  from  old  prejudices  and  goes — he  himself 
could  hardly  say  whither,  were  he  asked. 
But  he  prefers  to  remain  without  an  answer, 
rather  than  to  accept  any  of  the  traditional 
answers.  '  I  know  quite  well  I  have  no  more 
than  six  months  to  live  ;  and  it  would  seem  that 
now  I  ought  to  be  mainly  occupied  with  ques- 
tions of  the  darkness  beyond  the  grave,  and  the 
visions  which  will  visit  my  sleep  in  the  earth. 
But  somehow  my  soul  is  not  curious  of  these 
questions,  though  my  mind  grants  every  atom 
of  their  importance.'  In  contrast  to  the  habits 
of  the  past,  reason  is  once  more  pushed  out  of 


28         CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

the  door  with  all  due  respect,  while  its  rights  are 
handed  over  to  the  '  soul,'  to  the  dark,  vague 
aspiration  which  Tchekhov  by  instinct  trusts 
more  than  the  bright,  clear  consciousness  which 
beforehand  determines  the  beyond,  now  that  he 
stands  before  the  fatal  pale  which  divides  man 
from  the  eternal  mystery.  Is  scientific  philo- 
sophy indignant  ?  Is  Tchekhov  undermining 
its  surest  foundations  ?  But  he  is  an  over- 
strained, abnormal  man.  Certainly  you  are  not 
bound  to  listen  to  him  ;  but  once  you  have 
decided  to  do  so  then  you  must  be  prepared  for 
anything.  A  normal  person,  even  though  he  be 
a  metaphysician  of  the  extremest  ethereal  brand, 
always  adjusts  his  theories  to  the  requirements 
of  the  moment ;  he  destroys  only  to  build  up 
from  the  old  material  once  more.  This  is  the 
reason  why  material  never  fails  him.  Obedient 
to  the  fundamental  law  of  human  nature,  long 
since  noted  and  formulated  by  the  wise,  he  is 
content  to  confine  himself  to  the  modest  part 
of  a  seeker  after  forms.  Out  of  iron,  which  he 
finds  in  nature  ready  to  his  hand,  he  forges  a 
sword  or  a  plough,  a  lance  or  a  sickle.  The  idea 
of  creating  out  of  a  void  hardly  even  enters  his 
mind.  But  Tchekliov's  heroes,  persons  abnor- 
mal par  excellence,  are  faced  with  this  abnormal 
and  dreadful  necessity.  Before  them  always 
lies  hopelessness,  helplessness,  the  utter  impos- 
sibility of  any  action  whatsoever.  And  yet 
they  live  on,  they  do  not  die. 

A  strange  question,  and  one  of  extraordinary 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         29 

moment,  here  suggests  itself.  I  said  that  it 
was  foreign  to  human  nature  to  create  out  of  a 
void.  Yet  nature  often  deprives  man  of  ready- 
material,  while  at  the  same  time  she  demands 
imperatively  that  he  should  create.  Does  this 
mean  that  nature  contradicts  herself,  or  that  she 
perverts  her  creatures  ?  Is  it  not  more  correct 
to  admit  that  the  conception  of  perversion  is  of 
purely  liuman  origin.  Perhaps  nature  is  much 
more  economical  and  wise  than  our  wisdom,  and 
maybe  we  should  discover  much  more  if  instead 
of  dividing  people  into  necessary  and  super- 
fluous, useful  and  noxious,  good  and  bad,  we 
suppressed  the  tendency  to  subjective  valuation 
in  ourselves  and  endeavoured  with  greater  con- 
fidence to  accept  her  creations  ?  Otherwise  you 
come  immediately — to '  the  evil  gleam,' '  treasure- 
digging,'  sorcery  and  black  magic — and  a  wall 
is  raised  between  men  which  neither  logical 
argument  nor  even  a  battery  of  artillery  can 
break  down.  I  hardly  dare  hope  that  this  con- 
sideration will  appear  convincing  to  those  who 
are  used  to  maintaining  the  norm  ;  and  it  is 
probably  unnecessary  that  the  notion  of  the 
great  opposition  of  good  and  bad  which  is  alive 
among  men  should  die  away,  just  as  it  is  un- 
necessary that  children  should  be  born  with  the 
experience  of  men,  or  tliat  red  cheeks  and  curly 
hair  should  vanish  from  the  earth.  At  any  rate 
it  is  impossible.  The  world  has  many  centuries 
to  its  reckoning,  many  nations  have  lived  and 
died  upon  the  earth,  yet  as  far  as  we  know  from 


30        CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

the  books  and  traditions  that  have  survived  to 
us,  the  dispute  between  good  and  evil  was  never 
hushed.  And  it  always  so  happened  that  good 
was  not  afraid  of  the  light  of  day,  and  good  men 
lived  a  united,  social  life  ;  while  evil  hid  itself 
in  darkness,  and  the  wicked  always  stood  alone. 
Nor  could  it  have  been  otherwise. 

All  Tchekhov's  heroes  fear  the  light.  They 
are  lonely.  They  are  ashamed  of  their  hope- 
lessness, and  they  know  that  men  cannot  help 
them.  They  go  somewhere,  perhaps  even  for- 
ward, but  they  call  to  no  one  to  follow.  All 
things  are  taken  from  them :  they  must  create 
everything  anew.  Thence  most  probably  is 
derived  the  unconcealed  contempt  with  which 
they  behave  to  the  most  precious  products 
of  common  human  creativeness.  On  whatever 
subject  you  begin  to  talk  with  a  Tchekhov  hero 
he  has  one  reply  to  everything  :  Nobody  can 
teach  me  anything.  You  offer  him  a  new  con* 
ception  of  the  world  :  already  in  your  very  first 
words  he  feels  that  they  all  reduce  to  an  attempt 
to  lay  the  old  bricks  and  stones  over  again,  and 
he  turns  from  you  with  impatience,  and  often 
with  rudeness.  Tchekhov  is  an  extremely 
cautious  writer.  He  fears  and  takes  into 
account  public  opinion.  Yet  how  unconcealed 
is  the  aversion  he  displays  to  accepted  ideas 
and  conceptions  of  the  world.  In  The  Tedious 
Story,  he  at  any  rate  preserves  the  tone  and 
attitude  of  outward  obedience.  Later  he  throws 
aside  all  precautions,  and  instead  of  reproach- 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         31 

ing  himself  for  his  inability  to  submit  to  the 
general  idea,  openly  rebels  against  it  and 
jeers  at  it.  In  Ivanov  it  already  is  suffici- 
ently expressed ;  there  was  reason  for  the 
outburst  of  indignation  which  this  play  pro- 
voked in  its  day.  Ivanov,  I  have  already 
said,  is  a  dead  man.  The  only  thing  the 
artist  can  do  with  him  is  to  bury  him  decently, 
that  is,  to  praise  his  past,  pity  his  present,  and 
then,  in  order  to  mitigate  the  cheerless  impres- 
sion produced  by  death,  to  invite  the  general 
idea  to  the  funeral.  He  might  recall  the  univer- 
sal problems  of  humanity  in  any  one  of  the  many 
stereotyped  forms,  and  thus  the  difficult  case 
which  seemed  insoluble  would  be  removed. 
Together  with  Ivanov' s  death  he  should  portray 
a  bright  young  life,  full  of  promise,  and  the  im- 
pression of  death  and  destruction  would  lose  all 
its  sting  and  bitterness.  Tchekhov  does  just 
the  opposite.  Instead  of  endowing  youth  and 
ideals  with  power  over  destruction  and  death,  as 
all  philosophical  systems  and  many  works  of  art 
had  done,  he  ostentatiously  makes  the  good-for- 
nothing  wreck  Ivanov  the  centre  of  all  events. 
Side  by  side  with  Ivanov  there  are  young  lives, 
and  the  idea  is  also  given  her  representatives. 
But  the  young  Sasha,  a  wonderful  and  charming 
girl,  Avho  falls  utterly  in  love  with  the  broken 
hero,  not  only  does  not  save  her  lover,  but  herself 
perishes  under  the  burden  of  the  impossible  task. 
And  the  idea  ?  It  is  enough  to  recall  the  figure 
of  Doctor  Lvov  alone,  whom  Tchekhov  entrusted 


32         CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

with  the  responsible  role  of  a  representative  of 
the  all-powerful  idea,  and  you  will  at  once  per- 
ceive that  he  considers  himself  not  as  subject 
and  vassal,  but  as  the  bitterest  enemy  of  the 
idea.  The  moment  Doctor  Lvov  opens  his 
mouth,  all  the  characters,  as  though  acting  on  a 
previous  agreement,  vie  with  each  other  in  their 
haste  to  interrupt  him  in  the  most  insulting  way, 
by  jests,  threats,  and  almost  by  smacks  in  the 
face.  But  the  doctor  fulfils  his  duties  as  a 
representative  of  the  great  power  with  no  less 
skill  and  conscientiousness  than  his  predecessors 
— Starodoum^  and  the  other  reputable  heroes  of 
the  old  drama.  He  champions  the  wronged, 
seeks  to  restore  rights  that  have  been  trodden 
underfoot,  sets  himself  dead  against  injustice. 
Has  he  stepped  beyond  the  limits  of  his  pleni- 
potentiary powers  ?  Of  course  not ;  but  where 
Ivanovs  and  hopelessness  reign  there  is  not  and 
cannot  be  room  for  the  idea. 

They  cannot  possibly  live  together.  And  the 
eyes  of  the  reader,  who  is  accustomed  to  think 
that  every  kingdom  may  fall  and  perish,  yet 
the  kingdom  of  the  idea  stands  firm  in  saecula 
saeculorum,  behold  a  spectacle  unheard  of :  the 
idea  dethroned  by  a  helpless,  broken,  good-for- 
nothing  man  !  What  is  there  that  Ivanov  does 
not  say  ?  In  the  very  first  act  he  fires  off  a 
tremendous  tirade,  not  at  a  chance  corner,  but 
at  the  incarnate  idea — Starodoum-Lvov. 

1  A  hero  from  Fon-Vizin's  play  The  Minor.  Starodoum 
is  a  raisonneur,  a  '  positive '  type,  always  uttering  truisms. 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         33 

'  I  have  the  right  to  give  you  advice.  Don't 
you  marry  a  Jewess,  or  an  abnormal,  or  a  blue- 
stocking. Choose  something  ordinary,  greyish, 
without  any  bright  colours  or  superfluous  shades. 
Make  it  a  principle  to  build  your  life  of  cliches. 
The  more  grey  and  monotonous  the  background, 
the  better.  My  dear  man,  don' t  fight  thousands 
single-handed,  don't  tilt  at  windmills,  don't  run 
your  head  against  the  wall.  God  save  you  from 
all  kinds  of  Back-to-the-Landers'  advanced 
doctrines,  passionate  speeches.  .  .  .  Shut  your- 
self tight  in  your  own  shell,  and  do  the  tiny 
little  work  set  you  by  God.  .  .  .  It 's  cosier, 
honester,  and  healthier.' 

Doctor  Lvov,  the  representative  of  the  all- 
powerful,  sovereign  idea,  feels  that  his  sovereign's 
majesty  is  injured,  that  to  suffer  such  an  offence 
really  means  to  abdicate  the  throne.  Surely 
Ivanov  was  a  vassal,  and  so  he  must  remain. 
How  dare  he  let  his  tongue  advise,  how  dare  he 
raise  his  voice  when  it  is  his  part  to  listen  rever- 
ently, and  to  obey  in  silent  resignation  ?  This 
is  rank  rebellion  !  Lvov  attempts  to  draw  him- 
self up  to  his  full  height  and  answer  the  arrogant 
rebel  with  dignity.  Nothing  comes  of  it.  In  a 
weak,  trembling  voice  he  mutters  the  accus- 
tomed words,  which  but  lately  had  invincible 
power.  But  they  do  not  produce  their  custom- 
ary effect.  Their  virtue  is  departed.  Whither? 
Lvov  dares  not  own  it  even  to  himself.  But  it 
is  no  longer  a  secret  to  any  one.  Whatever 
mean  and  ugly  things  Ivanov  may  have  done — 

c 


34         CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

Tchekhov  is  not  close-fisted  in  this  matter  :  in 
his  hero's  conduct-book  are  written  all  manner 
of  offences  ;  almost  to  the  deliberate  murder  of 
a  woman  devoted  to  him — it  is  to  him  and  not 
to  Lvov  that  public  opinion  bows.  Ivanov  is 
the  spirit  of  destruction,  rude,  violent,  pitiless, 
sticking  at  nothing  :  yet  the  word  '  scoundrel,' 
which  the  doctor  tears  out  of  himself  with  a 
painful  effort  and  hurls  at  him,  does  not  stick  to 
him.  He  is  somehow  right,  with  his  own  peculiar 
right,  to  others  inconceivable,  yet  still,  if  we 
may  believe  Tchekhov,  incontestable.  Sasha,  a 
creature  of  youth  and  insight  and  talent,  passes 
by  the  honest  Starodoum-Lvov  unheeding,  on 
her  way  to  render  worship  to  him.  The  whole 
play  is  based  on  that.  It  is  true,  Ivanov  in  the 
end  shoots  himself,  and  that  may,  if  you  like, 
give  you  a  formal  ground  for  believing  that  the 
final  victory  remained  with  Lvov.  And  Tchek- 
hov did  well  to  end  the  drama  in  this  way — it 
could  not  be  spun  out  to  infinity.  It  would  have 
been  no  easy  matter  to  tell  the  whole  of  Ivanov's 
history.  Tchekhov  went  on  writing  for  fifteen 
years  after,  all  the  time  telling  the  unfinished 
story,  yet  even  then  he  had  to  break  it  off  with- 
out reaching  the  end.  .  .  . 

It  would  show  small  understanding  of  Tchek- 
hov to  take  it  into  one's  head  to  interpret 
Ivanov's  words  to  Lvov  as  meaning  that 
Tchekhov,  like  the  Tolstoi  of  the  War  and  Peace 
period,  saw  his  ideal  in  the  everyday  arrange- 
ment of  life.    Tchekhov  was  only  fighting  against 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         35 

the  idea,  and  he  said  to  it  ttie  most  abusive 
thing  that  entered  his  head.  For  what  can  be 
more  insulting  to  the  idea  than  to  be  forced  to 
Hsten  to  the  praise  of  everyday  hfe  ?  But  when 
the  opportunity  came  his  way,  Tchekhov  could 
describe  everyday  life  with  equal  venom.  The 
story,  The  Teacher  of  Literature,  may  serve  as  an 
example.  The  teacher  lives  entirely  by  Ivanov's 
prescription.  He  has  his  job,  and  his  wife — 
neither  Jewess  nor  abnormal,  nor  blue-stocking 
— and  a  home  that  fits  like  a  shell  .  .  .  ;  but  all 
this  does  not  prevent  Tchekhov  from  driving  the 
poor  teacher  by  slow  degrees  into  the  usual 
trap,  and  bringing  him  to  a  condition  wherein  it 
is  left  to  him  only  '  to  fall  down  and  weep,  and 
beat  his  head  against  the  floor.'  Tchekhov  had 
no  '  ideal,'  not  even  the  ideal  of  '  everyday  life ' 
which  Tolstoi  glorified  with  such  inimitable 
and  incomparable  mastery  in  his  early  works. 
An  ideal  presupposes  submission,  the  voluntary 
denial  of  one's  own  right  to  independence,  free- 
dom and  power ;  and  demands  of  this  kind,  even 
a  hint  of  such  demands,  roused  in  Tchekhov  all 
that  force  of  disgust  and  repulsion  of  which  he 
alone  was  capable. 

V 

Thus  the  real,  the  only  hero  of  Tchekhov,  is 
the  hopeless  man.  He  has  absolutely  no  action 
left  for  him  in  life,  save  to  beat  his  head  against 
the  stones.    It  is  not  surprising  that  such  a  man 


3G         CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

should  be  intolerable  to  his  neighbours.  Every- 
where he  brings  death  and  destruction  with  him. 
He  himself  is  aware  of  it,  but  he  has  not  the 
power  to  go  apart  from  men.  With  all  his  soul 
he  endeavours  to  tear  himself  out  of  his  horrible 
condition.  Above  all  he  is  attracted  to  fresh, 
young,  untouched  beings  ;  with  their  help  he 
hopes  to  recover  his  right  to  life  which  he  has  lost. 
The  hope  is  vain.  The  beginning  of  decay  always 
appears,  all-conquering,  and  at  the  end  Tchek- 
hov's  hero  is  left  to  himself  alone.  He  has 
nothing,  he  must  create  everything  for  himself. 
And  this  '  creation  out  of  the  void,'  or  more 
truly  the  possibility  of  this  creation,  is  the  only 
])roblem  which  can  occupy  and  inspire  Tchekhov. 
When  he  has  stripped  his  hero  of  the  last  shred, 
when  nothing  is  left  for  him  but  to  beat  his 
head  against  the  wall,  Tchekhov  begins  to  feel 
something  like  satisfaction,  a  strange  fire  lights 
in  his  burnt-out  eyes,  a  fire  which  Mihailovsky 
did  not  call  '  evil '  in  vain. 

Creation  out  of  the  void  !  Is  not  this  task 
beyond  the  limit  of  human  powers,  of  human 
rights  ?  Miliailovsky  obviously  had  one  straight 
answer  to  the  question.  ...  As  for  Tchekhov 
himself,  if  the  question  were  put  to  him  in  such 
a  deliberately  definite  form,  he  would  probably 
be  unable  to  answer,  although  he  was  continually 
engaged  in  the  activity,  or  more  properly,  because 
he  was  continually  so  engaged.  Without  fear  of 
mistake,  one  may  say  that  the  people  who  answer 
the  question  without  hesitation  in  either  sense 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID        37 

have  never  come  near  to  it,  or  to  any  of  the  so- 
called  ultimate  questions  of  life.  Hesitation  is 
a  necessary  and  integral  element  in  the  judg- 
ment of  those  men  whom  Fate  has  brought  near 
to  false  problems.  How  Tchekhov's  hand 
trembled  while  he  wrote  the  concluding  lines  of 
his  Tedious  Story  !  The  professor's  pupil — the 
being  nearest  and  dearest  to  him,  but  like  him- 
self, for  all  her  youth,  overstrained  and  bereft 
of  all  hope — has  come  to  Kharkov  to  seek  his  ad- 
vice.    The  follomng  conversation  takes  place  : 

'  "  Nicolai  Stepanich  !  "  she  says,  growing  pale 
and  pressing  her  hands  to  her  breast.  "  Nicolai 
Stepanich  !  I  can't  go  on  like  this  any  longer. 
For  God's  sake  tell  me  now,  immediately.  What 
shall  I  do  ?     Tell  me,  what  shall  I  do  ?  " 

'  "  What  can  I  say  ?  1  am  beaten.  I  can  say 
nothing." 

'  "  But  tell  me,  I  implore  you,"  she  continues, 
out  of  breath  and  trembling  all  over  her  body. 
"  I  swear  to  you,  I  can't  go  on  hkc  this  any 
longer.     I  haven't  the  strength." 

'  She  drops  into  a  chair  and  begins  to  sob. 
She  throws  her  head  back,  wrings  her  hands, 
stamps  with  her  feet ;  her  hat  falls  from  her  head 
and  dangles  by  its  string,  her  hair  is  loosened. 

'  "  Help  me,  help,"  she  implores.  "  I  can't 
bear  it  any  more." 

'  "  There 's  nothing  that  I  can  say  to  you, 
Katy,"  I  say. 

'  "  Help  me,"  she  sobs,  seizing  my  hand  and 
kissing  it.     "  You  're  my  father,  my  only  friend. 


38        CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

You  're  wise  and  learned,  and  you  've  lived  long  ! 
You  were  a  teacher.     Tell  me  what  to  do." 

'  "  Upon  my  conscience.  Katy,  I  do  not  know." 

'  I  am  bewildered  and  surprised,  stirred  by  her 
sobbing,  and  I  can  hardly  stand  upright. 

'  *'  Let 's  have  some  breakfast,  Katy,"  I  say 
with  a  constrained  smile. 

'  Instantly  I  add  in  a  sinking  voice  :  "  I  shall 
be  dead  soon,  Katy  ..." 

'  "  Only  one  word,  only  one  word,"  she  weeps 
and  stretches  out  her  hands  to  me.  "  What 
shall  I  do  ?  ..."  ' 

But  the  professor  has  not  the  word  to  give. 
He  turns  the  conversation  to  the  weather, 
Kharkov  and  other  indifferent  matters.  Katy 
gets  up  and  holds  out  her  hand  to  him,  without 
looking  at  him.  '  I  want  to  ask  her,'  he  con- 
cludes his  story,  '  "  So  it  means  you  won't  be  at 
my  funeral  ?  "  But  she  does  not  look  at  me; 
her  hand  is  cold  and  like  a  stranger's  ...  I 
escort  her  to  the  door  in  silence.  .  .  .  She  goes 
out  of  my  room  and  walks  down  the  long  passage, 
without  looking  back.  She  kno^vs  that  my  eyes 
are  following  her,  and  probably  on  the  landing 
she  will  look  back.  No,  she  did  not  look  back. 
The  black  dress  showed  for  the  last  time, 
her  steps  were  stilled.  .  .  .  Good  -  bye,  my 
treasure  !  .  .  .' 

The  only  answer  which  the  wise,  educated, 
long-lived  Nicolai  Stepanovich,  a  teacher  all  his 
life,  can  give  to  Katy's  question  is,  '  I  don't 
know.'     There  is  not,  in  all  his  great  experience 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         39 

of  the  past,  a  single  method,  rule,  or  suggestion, 
which  might  apply,  even  in  the  smallest  degree, 
to  the  wild  incongruity  of  the  new  conditions  of 
Katy's  life  and  his  own.  Katy  can  live  thus  no 
longer ;  neither  can  he  himself  continue  to 
endure  his  disgusting  and  shameful  helplessness. 
They  both,  old  and  young,  with  their  whole 
hearts  desire  to  support  each  other ;  they  can 
between  them  find  no  way.  To  her  question  : 
'  What  shall  I  do  ?  '  he  replied  :  '  I  shall  soon 
be  dead.'  To  his  '  I  shall  soon  be  dead  '  she 
answers  with  wild  sobbing,  wringing  her  hands, 
and  absurdly  repeating  the  same  words  over 
and  over  again.  It  would  have  been  better  to 
have  asked  no  question,  not  to  have  begun  that 
frank  conversation  of  souls.  But  they  do  not 
yet  understand  that.  In  their  old  life  talk 
would  bring  them  relief  and  frank  confession, 
intimacy.  But  now,  after  such  a  meeting  thej'' 
can  suffer  each  other  no  longer.  Katy  leaves  the 
old  professor,  her  foster-father,  her  true  father 
and  friend,  in  the  knowledge  that  he  has  become 
a  stranger  to  her.  She  did  not  even  turn  round 
towards  him  as  she  went  away.  Both  felt  that 
nothing  remained  save  to  beat  their  heads  against 
the  wall.  Therein  each  acts  at  his  own  peril, 
and  there  can  be  no  dreaming  of  a  consoling 
union  of  souls. 

VI 

Tchekhov   knew    what   conclusions    he    had 
reached    in    The   Tedious   Story   and   Ivanov. 


40         CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

Some  of  his  critics  also  knew,  and  told  him  so. 
I  cannot  venture  tc  say  what  was  the  cause — 
whether  fear  of  public  opinion,  or  his  horror  at 
his  own  discoveries,  or  both  together — but 
evidently  there  came  a  moment  to  Tchekhov 
when  he  decided  at  all  costs  to  surrender  his 
position  and  retreat.  The  fruit  of  this  decision 
was  Ward  No.  6,  In  this  story  the  hero  of  the 
drama  is  the  same  familiar  Tchekhov  character, 
the  doctor.  The  setting,  too,  is  quite  the  usual 
one,  though  changed  to  a  slight  extent.  Nothing 
in  particular  lias  occurred  in  the  doctor's  life. 
He  happened  to  come  to  an  out-of-the  way  place 
in  the  provinces,  and  gradually,  by  continually 
avoiding  life  and  people,  he  reached  a  condition 
of  utter  will-lessness,  which  he  represented  to 
himself  as  the  ideal  of  human  happiness.  He  is 
indifferent  to  everything,  beginning  with  his 
hospital,  where  he  can  hardly  ever  be  found, 
where  under  the  reign  of  the  drunken  brute  of  an 
assistant  the  patients  are  swindled  and  neglected. 
In  the  mental  ward  reigns  a  porter  who  is 
a  discharged  soldier  :  he  punches  his  restless 
patients  into  shape.  The  doctor  does  not  care, 
as  though  he  were  living  in  some  distant  other 
world,  and  does  not  understand  what  is  going  on 
before  his  very  eyes.  He  happens  to  enter  his 
ward  and  to  have  a  conversation  with  one  of  his 
patients.  He  listens  quietly  to  him  ;  but  his 
answer  is  words  instead  of  deeds.  He  tries  to 
show  his  lunatic  acquaintance  that  external  in- 
fluences cannot  affect  us  in  any  way  at  all.     The 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         41 

lunatic  does  not  agree,  becomes  impertinent, 
presents  objections,  in  which,  as  in  the  thoughts 
of  many  lunatics,  nonsensical  assertions  are 
mixed  with  very  profound  remarks.  Indeed, 
there  is  so  little  nonsense  that  from  the  conversa- 
tion you  would  hardly  imagine  that  you  have 
to  do  with  a  lunatic.  The  doctor  is  delighted 
with  his  new  friend,  but  does  nothing  whatsoever 
to  make  him  more  comfortable.  The  patient  is 
still  under  the  porter's  thumb  as  he  used  to  be, 
and  the  porter  gives  him  a  thrashing  on  the 
least  provocation.  The  patient,  the  doctor, 
the  people  round,  the  whole  setting  of  the 
hospital  and  the  doctor's  rooms,  are  described 
with  wonderful  talent.  Everything  induces  you 
to  make  absolutely  no  resistance  and  to  become 
fatalistically  indifierent : — let  them  get  drunk, 
let  them  fight,  let  them  thieve,  let  them  be 
brutal — what  does  it  matter  !  Evidently  it  is  so 
predestined  by  the  supreme  council  of  nature. 
The  philosophy  of  inactivity  which  the  doctor 
professes  is  as  it  were  prompted  and  whispered 
by  the  immutable  laws  of  human  existence. 
Apparently  there  is  no  force  which  may  tear  one 
from  its  power.  So  far  everything  is  more  or 
less  in  the  Tchekhov  style.  But  the  end  is  com- 
pletely different.  By  the  intrigues  of  his  col- 
league, the  doctor  himself  is  taken  as  a  patient 
into  the  mental  ward.  He  is  deprived  of  free- 
dom, shut  up  in  a  wing  of  the  hospital,  and 
even  thrashed,  thrashed  by  the  same  porter 
whose   behaviour  he   had    taught    his    lunatic 


42         CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

acquaintance  to  accept,  thrashed  before  his  ac- 
quaintance's very  eyes.  The  doctor  instantly 
awakens  as  though  out  of  a  dream.  A  fierce 
desire  to  struggle  and  to  protest  manifests  itself 
in  him.  True,  at  this  moment  he  dies  ;  but  the 
idea  is  triumphant,  still.  The  critics  could  con- 
sider themselves  quite  satisfied.  Tchekhov  had 
openly  repented  and  renounced  the  theory  of 
non-resistance  ;  and,  I  believe,  Ward  No.  6  met 
witli  a  sympathetic  reception  at  the  time.  In 
passing  I  would  say  that  the  doctor  dies  very 
beautifully  :  in  his  last  moments  he  sees  a  herd 
of  deer.  .  .  . 

Indeed,  the  construction  of  this  story  leaves 
no  doubt  in  the  mind.  Tchekhov  wished  to 
compromise,  and  he  compromised.  He  had 
come  to  feel  how  intolerable  was  hopelessness, 
how  impossible  the  creation  from  a  void.  To 
beat  one's  head  against  the  stones,  eternally  to 
beat  one's  head  against  the  stones,  is  so  horrible 
that  it  were  better  to  return  to  idealism.  Then 
the  truth  of  the  wonderful  Russian  saying  was 
proved  :  '  Don't  forswear  the  beggar's  wallet 
nor  the  prison.'  Tchekhov  joined  the  choir  of 
Russian  writers,  and  began  to  praise  the  idea. 
But  not  for  long.  His  very  next  story,  The 
Duel,  has  a  different  character.  Its  conclu- 
sion is  also  apparently  idealistic,  but  only  in 
appearance.  The  principal  hero  Layevsky  is  a 
parasite  like  all  Tchekhov's  heroes.  He  does 
nothing,  can  do  nothing,  does  not  even  wish  to 
do  anything,  lives  chiefly  at  others'  expense,  runs 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         43 

up  debts,  seduces  women.  .  .  .  His  condition 
is  intolerable.  He  is  living  with  another  man's 
wife,  whom  he  had  come  to  loathe  as  he  loathes 
himself,  yet  he  cannot  get  rid  of  her.  He  is  always 
in  straitened  circumstances  and  in  debt  every- 
where :  his  friends  dislike  and  despise  him.  His 
state  of  mind  is  always  such  that  he  is  ready  to 
run  no  matter  where,  never  looking  backwards, 
only  away  from  the  place  where  he  is  living  now. 
His  illegal  wife  is  in  roughly  the  same  position, 
unless  it  be  even  more  horrible.  Without  know- 
ing why,  without  love,  without  even  being 
attracted,  she  gives  herself  to  the  first,  common- 
place man  she  meets;  and  then  she  feels  as  though 
she  had  been  covered  from  head  to  foot  in  filth, 
and  the  filth  had  stuck  so  close  to  her  that  not 
ocean  itself  could  wash  her  clean.  This  couple 
lives  in  the  world,  in  a  remote  little  place  in 
the  Caucasus,  and  naturally  attracts  Tchekhov's 
attention.  There  is  no  denying  the  interest  of 
the  subject :  two  persons  befouled,  who  can 
neither  tolerate  others  nor  themselves.  .  .  . 

For  contrast's  sake  Tchekhov  brings  Layevsky 
into  collision  witl\  the  zoologist.  Von  Koren,  who 
has  come  to  the  seaside  town  on  important 
business — every  one  recognises  its  importance 
— to  study  the  embryolog}^  of  the  medusa.  Von 
Koren,  as  one  may  see  from  his  name,  is  of 
German  origin,  and  therefore  deliberately  repre- 
sented as  a  healthy,  normal,  clean  man,  the 
grandcliild  of  Goncharov's  Stolz,  the  direct 
opposite  of  Layevsky,  who  on  his  side  is  nearly 


44         CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

related  to  our  old  friend  Oblomov.  But  in 
Goncharov  the  contrast  between  Stolz  and 
Oblomov  is  quite  different  in  nature  and  mean- 
ing to  the  contrast  in  Tchekhov.  The  novelist 
of  the  'forties  hoped  that  a  rapprochement  with 
Western  culture  would  renew  and  resuscitate 
Russia.  And  Oblomov  himself  is  not  repre- 
sented as  an  utterly  hopeless  person.  He  is 
only  lazy,  inactive,  unenterprising.  You  have 
the  feeling  that  were  he  to  awaken  he  would  be 
a  match  for  a  dozen  Stolzs.  Layevsky  is  a 
different  affair.  He  is  awake  already,  he  was 
awakened  years  ago,  but  his  awakening  did  him 
no  good.  ...  *  He  does  not  love  nature ;  he 
has  no  God  ;  he  or  his  companions  had  ruined 
every  trustful  girl  he  had  known  ;  all  his  life 
long  he  had  not  planted  one  single  little  tree,  nor 
grown  one  blade  of  grass  in  his  own  garden, 
nor  while  he  lived  among  the  living,  had  he 
saved  the  life  of  one  single  fly  ;  but  only  ruined 
and  destroyed,  and  lied,  and  lied.  .  .  .'  The 
good-natured  sluggard  Oblomov  degenerated 
into  a  disgusting,  terrible  animal,  while  the 
clean  Stolz  lived  and  remained  clean  in  his 
posterity  !  But  to  the  new  Oblomov  he  speaks 
differently.  Von  Koren  calls  Layevsky  a 
scoundrel  and  a  rogue,  and  demands  that  he 
should  be  punished  with  the  utmost  severity. 
To  reconcile  them  is  impossible.  The  more  they 
meet,  the  deeper,  the  more  merciless,  the  more 
implacable  is  their  hatred  for  each  other.  It 
is  impossible  that  they  should  live  together  on 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         45 

the  earth.  It  must  be  one  or  the  other  :  either 
the  normal  Von  Koren,  or  the  degenerate 
decadent  Layevsky.  Of  course,  all  the  external, 
material  force  is  on  Von  Koren' s  side  in  the 
struggle.  He  is  always  in  the  right,  always 
victorious,  always  triumphant — in  act  no  less 
than  in  theory.  It  is  curious  that  Tchekhov, 
the  irreconcilable  enemy  of  all  kinds  of  phil- 
osophy— not  one  of  his  heroes  philosophises, 
or  if  he  does,  his  philosophising  is  unsuccessful, 
ridiculous,  weak  and  unconvincing— makes  an 
exception  for  Von  Koren,  a  typical  representa- 
tive of  the  positive,  materialistic  school.  His 
words  breathe  vigour  and  conviction.  They 
have  in  them  even  pathos  and  a  maximum  of 
logical  sequence.  There  are  many  materialist 
heroes  in  Tchekhov's  stories,  but  in  their 
materialism  there  is  a  tinge  of  veiled  idealism, 
according  to  the  stereotyped  prescription  of  the 
'sixties.  Such  heroes  Tchekhov  ridicules  and 
derides.  Idealism  of  every  kind,  whether  open 
or  concealed,  roused  feelings  of  intolerable 
bitterness  in  Tchekhov.  He  found  it  more 
pleasant  to  listen  to  the  merciless  menaces  of  a 
downright  materialist  than  to  accept  the  dry- 
as-dust  consolations  of  humanising  idealism. 
An  invincible  power  is  in  the  world,  crushing 
and  crippling  man — this  is  clear  and  even 
palpable.  The  least  indiscretion,  and  the 
mightiest  and  the  most  insignificant  alike  fall 
victims  to  it.  One  can  only  deceive  oneself 
about  it  so  long  as  one  knows  of  it  only  by 


46         CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

hearsay.  But  the  man  who  had  once  been  in 
the  iron  claws  of  necessity  loses  for  ever  his 
taste  for  idealistic  self-delusion.  No  more  does 
he  diminish  the  enemy's  power,  he  will  rather 
exaggerate  it.  And  the  pure  logical  materialism 
which  Von  Koren  professes  gives  the  most 
complete  expression  of  our  dependence  upon 
the  elemental  powers  of  nature.  Von  Koren's 
speech  has  the  stroke  of  a  hammer,  and  each 
blow  strikes  not  Layevsky  but  Tchekhov  him- 
self on  his  wounds.  He  gives  more  and  more 
strength  to  Von  Koren's  arm,  he  puts  himself 
in  the  way  of  his  blows.  For  what  reason  ? 
Decide  as  you  may.  Perhaps  Tchekhov 
cherished  a  secret  hope  that  self-inflicted  torment 
might  be  the  one  road  to  a  new  life  ?  He  has 
not  told  us  so.  Perhaps  he  did  not  know  the 
reason  himself,  and  perhaps  he  was  afraid  to 
offend  the  positive  idealism  which  held  such  un- 
disputed sway  over  contemporarj^  literature.  As 
yet  he  dared  not  lift  up  his  voice  against  the 
public  opinion  of  Europe — for  we  do  not  our- 
selves invent  our  philosophical  conceptions ; 
they  drift  down  on  the  wind  from  Europe  ! 
And,  to  avoid  quarrelling  with  people,  he 
devised  a  commonplace,  happy  ending  for  his 
terrible  story.  At  the  end  of  the  story  Layevsky 
'  reforms  '  :  he  marries  his  mistress  ;  gives  up 
his  dissolute  life ;  and  begins  to  devote  himself 
to  transcribing  documents,  in  order  to  pay  his 
debts.  Normal  people  can  be  perfectly  satisfied, 
since  normal  people  read  only  the  last  lines  of 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         47 

the  fable, — the  moral ;  and  the  moral  of  The 
Duel  is  most  wholesome  :  Layevsky  reforms 
and  begins  transcribing  documents.  Of  course 
it  may  seem  that  such  an  ending  is  more  like  a 
gibe  at  morality  ;  but  normal  people  are  not 
too  penetrating  psychologists.  They  are  scared 
of  double  meanings  and,  with  the  '  sincerity  ' 
peculiar  to  themselves,  they  take  every  word 
of  the  writer  for  good  coin.  Good  luck  to 
them  ! 

VII 

The  only  philosophy  which  Tchekhov  took 
seriously,  and  therefore  seriously  fought,  was 
positivist  materialism— just  the  positivist  ma- 
terialism, the  limited  materialism  which  does 
not  pretend  to  theoretical  completeness.  With 
all  his  soul  Tchekhov  felt  the  awful  dependence 
of  a  living  being  upon  the  invisible  but  invincible 
and  ostentatiously  soulless  laws  of  nature.  And 
materialism,  above  all  scientific  materialism, 
which  is  reserved  and  does  not  hasten  in  pm-suit 
of  the  final  word,  and  eschews  logical  complete- 
ness, wholly  reduces  to  the  definition  of  the 
external  conditions  of  our  existence.  The  ex- 
perience of  every  day,  every  hour,  every  minute, 
convinces  us  that  lonely  and  weak  man  brought 
to  face  with  the  laws  of  nature,  must  always 
adapt  himself  and  give  way,  give  way,  give  way. 
The  old  professor  could  not  regain  his  youth  ; 
the  overstrained  Ivanov  could  not  recover  his 
strength ;   Layevsky  could  not  wash  away  the 


48         CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

filth  with  which  he  was  covered — interminable 
series  of  implacable,  purely  materialistic  non 
possumus,  against  which  human  genius  can  set 
nothing  but  submission  or  forgetfulness.  Re- 
signe-toi,  mon  cceur,  dors  ton  sommeil  de  brute — 
we  shall  find  no  other  words  before  the  pictures 
which  are  unfolded  in  Tchekhov's  books.  The 
submission  is  but  an  outward  show ;  under  it 
lies  concealed  a  hard,  malignant  hatred  of  the 
unknown  enemy.  Sleep  and  oblivion  are  only 
seeming.  Does  a  man  sleep,  does  he  forget, 
when  he  calls  his  sleep,  sommeil  de  brute  ?  But 
how  can  he  change  ?  The  tempestuous  protests 
with  which  The  Tedious  Story  is  filled,  the  need 
to  pour  forth  the  pent-up  indignation,  soon  begin 
to  appear  useless,  and  even  insulting  to  human 
dignity.  Tchekhov's  last  rebellious  work  is 
Uncle  Vanya.  Like  the  old  professor  and  like 
Ivanov,  Uncle  Vanya  raises  the  alarm  and  makes 
an  incredible  pother  about  his  ruined  life.  He, 
too,  in  a  voice  not  his  own,  fills  the  stage  with 
his  cries  :  '  Life  is  over,  life  is  over,' — as  though 
indeed  any  of  these  about  him,  any  one  in  the 
whole  world,  could  be  responsible  for  his  mis- 
fortune. But  wailing  and  lamentation  is  not 
sufficient  for  him.  He  covers  his  own  mother 
with  insults.  Aimlessly,  like  a  lunatic,  without 
need  or  purpose,  he  begins  shooting  at  his 
imaginary  enemy,  Sonya's  pitiable  and  un- 
happy father.  His  voice  is  not  enough,  he  turns 
to  the  revolver.  He  is  ready  to  fire  all  the  cannon 
on  earth,  to  beat  every  drum,  to  ring  every  bell. 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         49 

To  him  it  seems  that  the  whole  of  mankind,  the 
whole  of  the  universe,  is  sleeping,  that  the  neigh- 
bours must  be  awakened.  He  is  prepared  for 
any  extravagance,  having  no  rational  way  of 
escape  ;  for  to  confess  at  once  that  there  is  no 
escape  is  beyond  the  capacity  of  any  man. 
Then  begins  a  Tchekhov  history  :  '  He  cannot 
reconcile  himself,  neither  can  he  refuse  so  to 
reconcile  himself.  He  can  only  Aveep  and  beat 
his  head  against  the  wall.'  Uncle  Vanya  does  it 
openly,  before  men's  eyes  ;  but  how  painful  to 
him  is  the  memory  of  this  frank  unreserve  ! 
When  every  one  has  departed  after  a  stupid  and 
painful  scene,  Uncle  Vanya  realises  that  he 
should  have  kept  silence,  that  it  is  no  use  to 
confess  certain  things  to  any  one,  not  even  to 
one's  nearest  friend.  A  stranger's  eye  cannot 
endure  the  sight  of  hopelessness.  '  Your  life  is 
over — you  have  yourself  to  thank  for  it :  you 
are  a  human  being  no  more,  all  human  things 
are  alien  to  you.  Your  neighbours  are  no  more 
neighbours  to  you,  but  strangers.  You  have  no 
right  either  to  help  others  or  to  expect  help  from 
them.  Your  destiny  is — absolute  loneHness.' 
Little  by  little  Tchekhov  becomes  convinced  of 
this  truth  :  Uncle  Vanya  is  the  last  trial  of  loud 
public  protest,  of  a  vigorous  '  declaration  of 
rio-hts.'  And  even  in  this  drama  Uncle  Vanva  is 
the  only  one  to  rage,  although  there  are  among 
the  characters  Doctor  Astrov  and  poor  Sonya, 
who  might  also  avail  themselves  of  their  right  to 
rage,  and  even  to  fire  the  cannon.    But  they  are 

D 


50        CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

silent.  They  even  repeat  certain  comfortable 
and  angelic  words  concerning  the  happy  future 
of  mankind  ;  which  is  to  say  that  their  silence  is 
doubly  deep,  seeing  that  '  comfortable  words ' 
upon  the  lips  of  such  people  are  the  evidence  of 
their  final  severance  from  life  :  they  have  left  the 
whole  world,  and  now  they  admit  no  one  to  their 
presence.  They  have  fenced  themselves  with 
comfortable  words,  as  with  the  Great  Wall  of 
China,  from  the  curiosity  and  attention  of  their 
neighbours.  Outwardly  they  resemble  all  men, 
therefore  no  man  dares  to  touch  their  inward  life. 
What  is  the  meaning  and  significance  of  this 
straining  inward  labour  in  those  whose  lives  are 
over  ?  Probably  Tchekhov  would  answer  this 
question  asNicolai  Stepanovich  answered  Katy's, 
with  '  I  do  not  know.'  He  would  add  nothing. 
But  this  life  alone,  more  like  to  death  than  life, 
attracted  and  engaged  him.  Therefore  his  utter- 
ance grew  softer  and  slower  with  every  year. 
Of  all  our  writers  Tchekhov  has  the  softest  voice. 
All  the  energy  of  his  heroes  is  turned  inwards. 
They  create  nothing  visible  ;  worse,  they  destroy 
all  things  visible  by  their  outward  passivity  and 
inertia.  A  '  positive  thinker  '  like  Von  Koren 
brands  them  with  terrible  words,  and  the  more 
content  is  he  with  himself  and  his  justice, 
the  more  energy  he  puts  into  his  anathemas. 
'  Scoundrels,  villains,  degenerates,  degraded 
animals  ! ' — what  did  Von  Koren  not  devise 
to  fit  the  Layevskys  ?  The  manifestly  posi- 
tive thinker  wants  to  force  Layevsky  to  tran- 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         51 

scribe  documents.     The  surreptitiously  positive 
thinkers — idealists  and  metaphysicians — do  not 
use  abusive  words.     Instead  they  bury  Tchek- 
hov's  nerves  alive  in  their  idealistic  cemeteries, 
which    are    called    conceptions    of   the    world. 
Tchekhov  himself  abstains  from  the  '  solution  of 
the  question '  with  a  persistency  to  which  most 
of  the  critics  probably  wished  a  better  fate,  and 
he  continues  his  long  stories  of  men  and  the  life 
of  men,  who  have  nothing  to  lose,  as  though  the 
only  interest  in  life  were  this  nightmare  suspen- 
sion  between   life   and   death.     What   does   it 
teach   us  of  life   or  death  ?      Again  we  must 
answer  :    '  I  do  not  know,' — those  words  which 
arouse  the  greatest  aversion  in  positive  thinkers, 
but  appear  in  some  mysterious  way  to  be  the 
permanent  elements  in  the  ideas  of  Tchekhov' s 
peoj^le.     This  is  the  reason  why  the  philosophy 
of  materialism,  though  so  hostile,  is  yet  so  near 
to  them.     It  contains  no  answer  which  can  com- 
pel man  to  cheerful  submission.     It  bruises  and 
destroys  him,  but  it  does  not  call  itself  rational ; 
it  does  not  demand  gratitude  ;    it  does  not  de- 
mand anything,  since  it  has  neither  soul  nor 
speech.     A  man  may  acknowledge  it  and  hate  it. 
If  he  manages  to  get  square  with  it — he  is  right ; 
if  he  fails — vac  victis.     How  comfortably  sounds 
the  voice  of  the  unconcealed  ruthlessness  of  in- 
animate,  impersonal,   indifferent  nature,   com- 
pared with  the  hypocritical  and  cloying  melodies 
of    idealistic,    humanistic    conceptions    of    the 
world  !     Then  again — and  this  is  the  chiefest 


52         CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

thing  of  all — men  can  struggle  with  nature  still ! 
And  in  the  struggle  with  nature  every  weapon 
is  lawful.  In  the  struggle  with  nature  man 
always  remains  man,  and,  therefore,  right,  what- 
ever means  he  tries  for  his  salvation,  even  if  he 
were  to  refuse  to  accept  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciple of  the  world's  being — the  indestructibility 
of  matter  and  energy,  the  law  of  inertia  and  the 
rest — since  who  will  dispute  that  the  most 
colossal  dead  force  must  be  subservient  to  man  ? 
But  a  conception  of  the  world  is  an  utterly 
different  affair  !  Before  uttering  a  word  it  puts 
forward  an  irreducible  demand :  man  must 
serve  the  idea.  And  this  demand  is  considered 
not  merely  as  sometjiing  understood,  but  as  of 
extraordinary  sublimity.  Is  it  strange  then  that 
in  the  choice  between  idealism  and  materialism 
Tchekhov  inclined  to  the  latter — the  stronjj  but 
honest  adversary  ?  With  idealism  a  man  can 
struggle  only  by  contempt,  and  Tchekhov's  works 
leave  nothing  to  be  desired  in  this  respect.  .  .  . 
But  how  shall  a  man  struggle  with  materialism  ? 
And  can  it  be  overcome  ?  Perhaps  Tchekhov's 
method  may  seem  strange  to  my  reader,  never- 
theless it  is  clear  that  he  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  there  was  only  one  way  to  struggle,  to 
which  the  prophets  of  old  turned  themselves  : 
to  beat  one's  head  against  the  wall.  Without 
thunder  or  cannon  or  alarm,  in  loneliness  and 
silence,  remote  from  their  fellows  and  their 
fellows'  fellows,  to  gather  all  the  forces  of  de- 
spair for  an  absurd  attempt  long  since  con- 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         53 

demned  by  science.     Have  you  any  right  to 
expect  from  Tchckhov  an  approval  of  scientific 
methods  ?     Science  has  robbed  him  of  every- 
thing :    he  is  condemned  to  create  from  the 
void,  to  an  activity  of  which  a  normal  man, 
using  normal  means,  is  utterly  incapable.     To 
achieve  the  impossible  one  must  first  leave  the 
road  of  routine.     However  obstinately  we  may 
pursue  our  scientific  quests,  they  will  not  lead  us 
to  the  elixir  of  life.     Science  began  with  casting 
away  the  longing  for  human  omnipotence  as  in 
principle  unattainable  :    her  methods  are  such 
that  success  along  certain  of  her  paths  preclude 
even    seeking   along   others.     In   other   words, 
scientific  method  is  defined  Ijy  the  character  of 
the  problems  which  she  puts  to  herself.     Indeed, 
not  one  of  her  problems  can  be  solved  by  beating 
one's  head  against  the  wall.     But  this  method, 
old-fashioned   though   it   is — I   repeat,    it   was 
known  to  the  prophets  and  used  by  them — 
promised  more  to  Tchekhov  and  his  nerves  than 
all  inductions  and  deductions  (which  were  not 
invented  by  science,  but  have  existed  since  the 
beginning  of  the  world).     This  prompts  a  man 
with  some  mysterious  instinct,  and  appears  upon 
the  scene  whenever  the  need  of  it  arises.    Science 
condemns  it.     But  that  is  nothing  strange  :   it 
condemns  science. 

VIII 

Now  perhaps  the  further  development  and 
direction  of  Tchekhov' s  creation  will  be  intelli- 


54         CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

gible,  and  that  peculiar  and  unique  blend  in 
him  of  sober  materialism  and  fanatical  stubborn- 
ness in  seeking  new  paths,  always  round  about 
and  hazardous.  Like  Hamlet,  he  would  dig 
beneath  his  opponent  a  mine  one  yard  deeper,  so 
that  he  may  at  one  moment  blow  engineer  and 
engine  into  the  air.  His  patience  and  fortitude 
in  this  hard,  underground  toil  are  amazing  and  to 
many  intolerable.  Everywhere  is  darkness,  not 
a  ray,  not  a  spark,  but  Tchekhov  goes  forward, 
slowly,  hardly,  hardly  moving.  ...  An  inex- 
perienced or  impatient  eye  will  perhaps  observe 
no  movement  at  all.  It  may  be  Tchekhov  him- 
self does  not  know  for  certain  whether  he  is 
moving  forward  or  marking  time.  To  calculate 
beforehand  is  impossible.  Impossible  even  to 
hope.  Man  has  entered  that  stage  of  his  exist- 
ence wherein  the  cheerful  and  foreseeing  mind 
refuses  its  service.  It  is  impossible  for  him  to 
present  to  himself  a  clear  and  distinct  notion 
of  Avhat  is  going  on.  Everything  takes  on  a  tinge 
of  fantastical  absurdity.  One  believes  and 
disbelieves — everything.  In  The  Black  Monk 
Tchekhov  tells  of  a  new  reality,  and  in  a  tone 
which  suggests  that  he  is  himself  at  a  loss  to  say 
where  the  reality  ends  and  the  phantasmagoria 
begins.  The  black  monk  leads  the  young  scholar 
into  some  mysterious  remoteness,  where  the  best 
dreams  of  mankind  shall  be  realised.  The  people 
about  call  the  monk  a  hallucination  and  fight 
him  with  medicines — drugs,  better  foods  and 
milk.     Kovrin   himself  does  not  know  who  is 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         55 

right.    When  he  is  speaking  to  the  monk,  it 
seems  to  him  that  the  monk  is  right ;   when  he 
sees  before  him  his  weeping  wife  and  the  serious, 
anxious  faces  of  the  doctors,  he  confesses  that 
he  is  under  the  influence  of  fixed  ideas,  which 
lead  him  straight  to  lunacy.     Finally  the  black 
monk  is  victorious.     Kovrin  has  not  the  power 
to  support  the  banality  which  surrounds  him  ; 
he  breaks  with  his  wife  and  her  relations,  who 
appear  like  inquisitors  in  his  eyes,  and  goes 
away  somewhere — but  in  our  sight  he  arrives 
nowhere.     At  the  end  of  the  story  he  dies  in 
order  to  give  the  author  the  right  to  make  an 
end.     This  is  always  the  case  :  when  the  author 
does  not  know  what  to  do  with  his  hero  he  kills 
him.     Sooner  or  later  in  all  probability  this  habit 
will  be  abandoned.     In  the  future,  probably, 
writers  will  convince  themselves  and  the  public 
that  any  kind  of  artificial  comple  tion  is  absolutely 
STiperfluous.     The    matter    is    exhausted — stop 
the  tale  short,  even  though  it  be  on  a  half-word. 
Tchekhov  did  so  sometimes,  but  only  sometimes. 
In  most  cases  he  preferred  to  satisfy  the  tradi- 
tional demands  and  to  supply  his  readers  with 
an  end.     This  habit  is  not  so  unimportant  as  at 
first  sight  it  may  seem.     Consider  even   The 
Black  Monk.     The  death  of  the  hero  is  as  it  were 
an  indication  that  abnormality  must,  in  Tchek- 
hov's  opinion,  necessarily  lead  through  an  absurd 
life  to  an  absurd  death  :    but  this  was  hardly 
Tchekhov's  firm  conviction.     It  is  clear  that  he 
expected  something  from  abnormality,  and  there- 


56         CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

fore  gave  no  deep  attention  to  men  who  had  left 
the  common  track.  True,  he  came  to  no  firm  or 
definite  conclusions,  for  all  the  tense  effort  of  his 
creation.  He  became  so  firmly  convinced  that 
there  was  no  issue  from  the  entangled  labyrinth, 
that  the  labyrinth  with  its  infinite  wanderings, 
its  perpetual  hesitations  and  strayings,  its  un- 
caused griefs  and  joys  uncaused — in  brief,  all 
things  which  normal  men  so  fear  and  shun — 
became  the  very  essence  of  his  life.  Of  this  and 
this  alone  must  a  man  tell.  Not  of  our  invention 
is  normal  life,  nor  abnormal.  Why  then  should 
the  first  alone  be  considered  as  the  real  reality  ? 
The  Sea-Gull  must  be  considered  one  of  the 
most  characteristic,  and  therefore  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  of  Tchekhov's  works.  Therein  the 
artist's  true  attitude  to  life  received  its  most  com- 
plete expression.  Here  all  the  characters  are 
either  blind,  and  afraid  to  move  from  their  seats 
in  case  they  lose  the  way  home,  or  half-mad,  strug- 
gling and  tossing  about  to  no  end  nor  purpose. 
Arkadzina  the  famous  actress  clings  with  her 
teeth  to  her  seventy  thousand  roubles,  her  fame, 
and  her  last  lover.  Tregovin  the  famous  writer 
writes  day  in,  day  out ;  he  writes  and  writes, 
knowing  neither  end  nor  aim.  People  read  his 
works  and  praise  them,  but  he  is  not  his  own 
master ;  like  Marko,  the  ferryman  in  the  tale, 
he  labours  on  without  taking  his  hand  from  the 
oar,  carrying  passengers  from  one  bank  to  the 
other.  The  boat,  the  passengers,  and  the  river 
too,  bore  him  to  death.     But  how  can  he  get  rid 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID         57 

of  them  ?  He  might  give  the  oars  over  to  the 
first-comer  :  the  sohition  is  simple,  bvit  after  it, 
as  in  the  tale,  he  must  go  to  heaven.  Not 
Trego vin  alone,  but  all  the  people  in  Tchekhov's 
books  who  are  no  longer  young  remind  one  of 
Marko  the  ferryman.  It  is  plain  that  they  dis- 
like their  work,  but,  exactly  as  though  they  were 
hypnotised,  they  cannot  break  away  from  the 
influence  of  the  alien  power.  The  monotonous, 
even  dismal,  rhythm  of  life  has  lulled  their 
consciousness  and  will  to  sleep.  Everywhere 
Tchekhov  underlines  this  strange  and  mysterious 
trait  of  human  life.  His  people  always  speak, 
always  think,  always  do  one  and  the  same  thing. 
One  builds  houses  according  to  a  plan  made  once 
for  all  {My  Life) ;  another  goes  on  his  round  of 
visits  from  morn  to  night,  collecting  roubles 
{Yonitch) ;  a  third  is  always  buying  up  houses 
{Three  Years).  Even  the  language  of  his  char- 
acters is  deliberately  monotonous.  They  are  all 
monotonous,  to  the  point  of  stupidity,  and  they 
are  all  afraid  to  break  the  monotony,  as  though 
it  were  the  source  of  extraordinary  joys.  Read 
Tregovin's  monologue  : 

'  ...  Let  us  talk.  ...  Let  us  talk  of  my 
beautiful  life.  .  .  .  What  shall  I  begin  with? 
[Musing  a  little.]  .  .  .  There  are  such  things 
as  fixed  ideas,  when  a  person  thinks  day  and 
night,  for  instance,  of  the  moon,  always  of  the 
moon.  I  too  have  my  moon.  Day  and  night 
I  am  at  the  mercy  of  one  besetting  idea  :  "I 
must  write,  I  must  write,  I  must."     I   have 


58        CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

hardly  finished  one  story  than,  for  some  reason 
or  otiier,  I  must  write  a  second,  then  a  third,  and 
after  the  third,  a  fourth.  I  write  incessantly, 
post-haste.  I  cannot  do  otherwise.  Where 
then,  I  ask  you,  is  beautj^  and  serenity  ?  What 
a  monstrous  life  it  is  !  I  am  sitting  with  you 
now,  I  am  excited,  but  meanwhile  every  second 
I  remember  that  an  unfinished  story  is  waiting 
for  me.  I  see  a  cloud,  like  a  grand  piano.  It 
smells  of  heliotrope.  I  say  to  myself :  a  sickly 
smell,  a  half-mourning  colour.  ...  I  must  not 
forget  to  use  these  words  when  describing  a 
summer  evening.  I  catch  up  myself  and  you  on 
every  phrase,  on  every  word,  and  hurry  to  lock 
all  these  words  and  phrases  into  my  literary 
storehouse.  Perhaps  they  will  be  useful.  When 
I  finish  work  I  run  to  the  theatre,  or  go  off  fish- 
ing :  at  last  I  shall  rest,  forget  myself.  But 
no  !  a  heavy  ball  of  iron  is  dragging  on  my 
fetters, — a  new  subject,  which  draws  me  to  the 
desk,  and  I  must  make  haste  to  write  and  write 
again.  And  so  on  for  ever,  for  ever.  I  have 
no  rest  from  myself,  and  I  feel  that  I  am  eating 
away  my  own  life.  I  feel  that  the  honey  which 
I  give  to  others  has  been  made  of  the  pollen  of 
my  most  precious  flowers,  that  I  have  plucked 
the  flowers  themselves  and  trampled  them  down 
to  the  roots.  Surely,  I  am  mad.  Do  my  neigh- 
bours and  friends  treat  me  as  a  sane  person  ? 
"  What  are  you  writing  ?  What  have  you  got 
ready  for  us  ?  "  The  same  thing,  the  same  thing 
eternally,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  the  attention. 


CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID        59 

the  praise,  the  enthusiasm  of  my  friends  is  all  a 
fraud.  I  am  being  robbed  like  a  sick  man,  and 
sometimes  I  am  afraid  that  thej^  will  creep  up  to 
me  and  seize  me,  and  put  me  away  in  an  asylum.' 
But  why  these  torments  ?  Throw  up  the 
oars  and  begin  a  new  life.  Impossible.  While 
no  answer  comes  down  from  heaven,  Tregovin 
will  not  throw  up  the  oars,  will  not  begin  a  new 
life.  In  Tchekhov's  work,  only  young,  very 
young  and  inexperienced  people  speak  of  a 
new  life.  Ttiey  are  always  dreaming  of  happi- 
ness, regeneration,  light,  joy.  They  fly  head- 
long into  the  flame,  and  are  burned  like  silly 
butterflies.  In  The  Sea-Gull,  Nina  Zaryechnaya 
and  Trepliev,  in  other  works  other  heroes,  men 
and  women  alike  —  all  are  seeking  for  some- 
thing, yearning  for  something,  but  not  one  of 
them  does  that  which  he  desires.  Each  one 
lives  in  isolation  ;  each  is  wholly  absorbed  in  his 
life,  and  is  indifferent  to  the  lives  of  others. 
And  the  strange  fate  of  Tchekhov's  heroes  is 
that  they  strain  to  the  last  limit  of  their  inward 
powers,  but  there  are  no  visible  results  at  all. 
They  are  all  pitiable.  The  woman  takes  snuff, 
dresses  slovenly,  wears  her  hair  loose,  is  unin- 
teresting. The  man  is  irritable,  grumbling, 
takes  to  drink,  bores  every  one  about  him.  They 
act,  they  speak — always  out  of  season.  They 
cannot,  I  would  even  say  they  do  not  want  to, 
adapt  the  outer  world  to  themselves.  Matter 
and  energy  unite  according  to  their  own  laws — 
people  live  according  to  their  own,  as  though 


60         CREATION  FROM  THE  VOID 

matter  and  energy  had  no  existence  at  all.  In 
this  Tchekhov's  intellectuals  do  not  differ  from 
illiterate  peasants  and  the  half-educated  bour- 
geois. Life  in  the  manor  is  the  same  as  in  the 
valley  farm,  the  same  as  in  the  village.  Not 
one  believes  that  by  changing  his  outward  con- 
ditions he  would  change  his  fate  as  well.  Every- 
where reigns  an  unconscious  but  deep  and 
ineradicable  conviction  that  our  will  must  be 
directed  towards  ends  which  have  nothing  in 
common  with  the  organised  life  of  mankind. 
Worse  still,  the  organisation  appears  to  be  the 
enemy  of  the  will  and  of  man.  One  must  spoil, 
devour,  destroy,  ruin.  To  think  out  things 
quietly,  to  anticipate  the  future — that  is  im- 
possible. One  must  beat  one's  head,  beat  one's 
head  eternally  against  the  wall.  And  to  what 
purpose  ?  Is  there  any  purpose  at  all  ?  Is  it 
a  beginning  or  an  end  ?  Is  it  possible  to  see  in 
it  the  warrant  of  a  new  and  inhiiman  creation, 
a  creation  out  of  the  void  ?  '  I  do  not  know  ' 
was  the  old  professor's  answer  to  Katy.  '  I  do 
not  know  '  was  Tchekhov's  answer  to  the  sobs 
of  those  tormented  imto  death.  With  these 
words,  and  only  these,  can  an  essay  upon 
Tchekhov  end.  Resigne-toi,  mon  coeur,  dors  ton 
sommcil  de  bride. 


THE   GIFT   OF  PROPHECY 


THE   GIFT   OF  PROPHECY 

(For  the  twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  F.  M.  Dostoevsky's 
death. ) 


Vladimir  Soloviev  used  to  call  Dostoevsky 
'  the  prophet,'  and  even  '  the  prophet  of  God.' 
Immediately  after  Soloviev,  though  often  in 
complete  independence  of  him,  very  many 
people  looked  upon  Dostoevsky  as  the  man  to 
whom  the  books  of  human  destiny  were  opened  ; 
and  this  happened  not  only  after  his  death,  but 
even  while  he  was  yet  alive.  Apparently  Dosto- 
evsky himself  too,  if  he  did  not  regard  himself 
as  a  prophet — he  was  too  eagle-eyed  for  that — 
at  least  thought  it  right  that  all  people  should 
see  a  prophet  in  him.  To  this  bears  witness  the 
tone  of  The  Journal  of  an  Author,  no  less  than  the 
questions  upon  which  he  generally  touches 
therein.  The  Journal  of  an  Author  began  to 
appear  in  1873,  that  is  on  Dostoevsky's  return 
from  abroad,  and  therefore  coincides  with  what 
his  biographers  call  '  the  highest  period  of  his 
life.'  Dostoevsky  was  then  the  happy  father 
of  a  family,  a  man  of  secure  position,  a  famous 
writer,  the  author  of  a  whole  series  of  novels 
known  to  all :  The  House  of  the  Dead,  The  Idiot, 


64  THE  GIFT  OF  PROPHECY 

The  Possessed.  He  has  everything  which  can 
be  required  from  Hfe,  or,  more  truly,  he  has 
taken  everything  which  can  be  taken  from  life. 
You  remember  Tolstoi's  deliberations  in  his 
Confession  ?  '  Finally,  I  shall  be  as  famous  as 
Pushkin,  Gogol,  Goethe  and  Shakespeare — 
and  what  shall  come  after  ?  '  Indeed,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  become  a  more  famous  writer  than  Shake- 
speare ;  and  even  if  one  succeeded,  the  inevitable 
question,  '  And  what  shall  come  after  ?  '  would 
by  no  means  be  removed.  Sooner  or  later  in  the 
activity  of  a  great  writer  a  moment  comes  when 
further  perfection  seems  impossible.  How  shall 
a  man  be  greater  than  himself  in  the  world  of 
literature  ?  If  he  would  move,  then  by  his  own 
will  or  in  spite  of  it  he  must  step  on  to  another 
plane.  And  this  is  plainly  the  beginning  of  pro- 
phecy in  a  writer.  In  the  general  view  the 
prophet  is  greater  than  the  writer  ;  and  even 
the  possession  of  genius  is  not  always  a  guarantee 
against  the  general  view.  Even  men  so  sceptical 
as  Tolstoi  and  Dostoevsky,  men  always  ready 
to  doubt  everything,  more  than  once  were  the 
victims  of  prejudices.  Prophetic  words  were 
expected  of  them,  and  they  went  out  to  meet 
men's  desires, Dostoevsky  even  more  readily  than 
Tolstoi.  Moreover  both  prophesied  clumsily  : 
they  promised  one  thing,  and  something  wholly 
different  happened.  So  Tolstoi  promised  long 
ago  that  men  would  awake  to  their  error  soon 
and  would  put  away  from  them  fratricidal  war, 
and  would  begin  to  live  as  true  Christians  should, 


THE  GIFT  OF  PROPHECY  65 

fulfilling  the  Gospel  commandment  of  love. 
Tolstoi  prophesied  and  preached  ;  people  read 
him,  as,  it  seems,  they  read  no  other  writer  : 
but  they  have  not  changed  their  habits  nor 
their  tastes.  For  the  last  ten  years  Tolstoi  has 
perforce  been  a  witness  of  a  whole  series  of 
horrible  and  most  savage  wars.  And  now  there 
is  our  present  revolution  ^ — armed  mobs  rioting, 
the  gallows  set  up,  men  shot  down,  bombs — the 
revolution  which  came  to  replace  the  bloody 
war  in  the  Far  East ! 

And  this  is  in  Russia,  where  Tolstoi  was  born, 
lived,  taught  and  prophesied,  where  millions  of 
people  sincerely  hold  him  to  be  the  greatest 
genius  of  all  !  Even  in  his  own  family  Tolstoi 
could  not  effect  the  change  that  he  desired.  One 
of  his  sons  is  an  officer  in  the  army  ;  the  other 
writes  in  the  Novoie  Vremya,  as  though  he  were 
Souvorin's  ^  son,  not  Tolstoi's.  .  .  .  Where,  then, 
is  the  gift  of  prophecy  ?  Why  is  it  that  a  man 
so  great  as  Tolstoi  can  foresee  nothing,  and 
seems  to  peer  his  way  through  life  ?  '  What 
will  to-morrow  bring  forth  ?  '  '  To-morrow  I  '11 
work  miracles,'  said  the  magician  to  the  Russian 
prince  of  old.  For  reply  the  prince  drew  his 
sword  and  struck  off  the  magician's  head  ;  and 
the  excited  mob,  which  believed  in  the  magician- 
prophet,  became  calm  and  departed  home. 
History  is  ever  striking  off  the  heads  of  prophetic 
predictions,  and  yet  the  crowd  still  runs  after 

'  This  essay  was  written  during  the  revolution  of  1905. 
2  The  famous  editor  of  the  Novoie  Vremya. 
E 


66  THE  GIFT  OF  PROPHECY 

the  prophets.  Of  Httle  faith,  the  crowd  looks 
for  a  sign,  because  it  desires  a  miracle.  But 
can  the  ability  to  predict  be  accounted  as  evi- 
dence of  the  power  to  work  miracles  ?  It  is 
possible  to  predict  an  eclipse  of  the  sun  or  the 
appearance  of  a  comet,  but  this  surely  means  a 
miracle  only  to  the  ignorant.  An  enlightened 
mind  is  secure  in  the  knowledge  that  where 
prediction  is  possible,  there  is  no  miracle,  since 
the  possibility  of  prediction  and  of  foreseeing 
presupposes  a  strict  uniformity.  Therefore  not 
he  will  appear  a  prophet  who  has  great  spiritual 
gifts,  nor  he  who  desires  to  dominate  the  Avorld 
and  to  command  the  very  laws,  neither  the 
magician,  nor  the  sorcerer,  nor  the  artist,  but  he 
who,  having  yielded  himself  beforehand  to  the 
actual  and  its  laws,  has  devoted  himself  to  the 
mechanical  labour  of  record  and  calculation. 
Bismarck  could  foretell  the  greatness  of  Russia 
and  Germany ;  and  not  only  Bismarck,  but  an 
ordinary  German  politician,  for  whom  every- 
thing is  reduced  to  Dents cliland,  Deutschland 
ilber  alles,  could  read  the  future  for  many  years 
ahead;  yet  Dostoevsky  and  Tolstoi  could  foresee 
nothing.  In  Dostoevsky  the  failure  is  still  more 
remarkable  than  in  Tolstoi,  because  he  more 
often  attempted  prediction  :  more  than  half  of 
his  Journal  consists  in  unfulfilled  prophecies. 
So  often  did  he  commit  his  prophetic  genius. 


THE  GIFT  OF  PROPHECY  67 

II 

To  some  it  may  perhaps  seem  out  of  place 
that  in  an  article  devoted  to  the  twenty-fifth 
anniversary  of  the  writer's  death,  I  call  to  mind 
his  mistakes  and  errors.  The  reproach  is  hardly 
just.  A  certain  kind  of  defect  in  a  great  man 
is  at  least  as  characteristic  and  important  as 
his  qualities. 

Dostoevsky  was  not  a  Bismarck.  But  is  that 
so  terrible  that  we  must  lament  it  ?  Moreover, 
for  writers  of  the  type  of  Tolstoi  and  Dostoevsky, 
their  social  and  political  ideas  are  without  any 
value.  They  know  well  that  no  one  obeys  them. 
Whatever  they  may  say,  history  and  political 
life  will  go  on  in  the  same  way,  since  it  is  not 
their  books  and  articles  which  guide  events. 
And,  probably,  here  is  the  explanation  of  the 
amazing  boldness  of  their  opinions.  If  Tolstoi 
really  imagined  that  it  would  be  enough  for  him 
to  write  an  article  demanding  that  all  '  soldiers, 
policemen,  judges,  ministers  '  and  the  rest,  all 
those  guardians  of  the  public  peace,  whom  he 
detested — and,  by  the  way,  wlio  loves  them  ? — 
should  be  dismissed,  for  all  prison-doors  to  be 
flung  wide  before  the  murderers  and  robbers — ■ 
who  can  tell  whether  he  would  have  shown  him- 
self sufficiently  firm  and  resolute  in  his  opinions, 
to  take  upon  himself  the  responsibility  for  the 
effects  of  the  measures  which  he  proposed  ?  But 
he  knows  beyond  all  doubt  that  he  will  not 
be  obeyed,  and  therefore  he  calmly  preaches 


68  THE  GIFT  OF  PROPHECY 

anarchy.  Dostoevsky's  part  as  a  preacher  was 
quite  different ;  but  it  too  was,  so  to  speak, 
platonic.  Probably  it  came  as  a  surprise  even 
to  himself,  that  he  became  the  prophet,  not  of 
'  ideal '  politics,  but  of  those  most  reahstic  tasks 
which  governments  always  set  themselves  in 
countries  where  a  few  men  direct  the  destinies 
of  peoples.  Listening  to  Dostoevsky,  one  may 
imagine  that  he  is  discovering  ideas  which  the 
government  must  take  for  its  guidance  and  set 
itself  to  realise.  But  you  will  soon  convince 
yourself  that  Dostoevsky  did  not  discover  one 
single  original  political  idea.  Everything  of  the 
kind  that  he  possessed  he  had  borrowed  without 
examination  from  the  Slavophiles,  who  in  their 
turn  appeared  original  only  to  the  extent  to 
which  they  were  able  without  outside  assistance 
to  translate  from  the  German  and  the  French  : 
Russland,  Russland  iiber  allcs.  (Even  the  rhythm 
of  the  verse  is  not  affected  by  the  substitution 
of  the  one  word.)  But  what  is  most  important 
is,  that  the  Slavophiles  with  their  Russo-German 
glorification  of  nationality,  and  with  them 
Dostoevsky  who  joined  the  chorus,  have  neither 
taught  nor  educated  one  single  man  among  the 
ruling  classes.  Our  government  knew  all  that 
it  needed  to  know  by  itself,  without  the  Slavo- 
philes and  without  Dostoevsky.  From  time 
immemorial  it  had  gone  its  way  by  the  road 
which  the  theorists  so  passionately  praised  :  so 
that  nothing  was  left  to  them  but  to  eulogise 
those  in  power  and  to  defend  the  policy  of  the 


THE  GIFT  OF  PROPHECY  69 

Russian  government  against  the  public  opinion 
which  was  hostile  to  it.  Autocracy,  Orthodoxy, 
Nationality — all  these  were  held  so  firmly  in 
Russia  that  in  the  'seventies  when  Dostoevsky 
began  to  preach  they  needed  no  support  what- 
ever. And  surely  every  one  knows  that  power 
never  seriously  reckons  upon  the  help  of  litera- 
ture. Certainly  it  requires  that  the  Muses 
should  pay  tribute  to  it  with  the  others,  nobly 
formulating  its  demands  in  the  words  :  Blessed 
he  the  union  of  the  sword  and  the  lyre.  It  used  to 
happen  that  the  Muses  did  not  refuse  the  request, 
sometimes  sincerely,  sometimes  because,  as 
Heine  said,  it  is  particularly  disagreeable  to 
wear  iron  chains  in  Russia,  on  account  of  the 
heavy  frosts.  In  any  case  the  Muses  were  only 
allowed  to  sing  the  praises  of  the  sword,  but  by 
no  means  to  wield  it.  There  are  all  kinds  of 
unions.  And  here  again  Dostoevsky,  for  all  his 
independent  nature,  still  appeared  in  the  role  of 
a  prophet  of  the  Russian  government :  that  is, 
he  divined  the  secret  devices  of  the  powers  that 
were,  and  in  this  connection  then  recalled  all 
the  '  high  and  beautiful '  words  which  he  had 
managed  to  hoard  up  in  the  course  of  his  long 
wanderings.  For  instance,  the  government 
began  to  cast  covetous  glances  towards  the  East 
(at  that  time  the  Near  East  still) ;  Dostoevsky 
begins  to  argue  that  we  must  have  Constanti- 
nople, and  to  prophesy  that  Constantinople 
will  soon  be  ours.  His  '  argument '  m,  of  course, 
of  a  purely  '  moral  character,'  and,  sure  enough. 


70  THE  GIFT  OF  PROPHECY 

he  is  a  writer.  Only  from  Constantinople,  he 
says,  can  we  make  avail  the  purely  Russian 
ideal  of  embracing  all  humanity.  Of  course  our 
government,  though  indeed  we  had  no  Bis- 
marcks,  perfectly  well  understood  the  value  of 
moral  argument  and  of  prophecy  based  upon 
them,  and  would  have  preferred  a  few  well- 
equipped  divisions  and  improved  guns.  To 
realist  politicians  one  single  soldier,  armed  not 
with  a  gun  but  with  a  blunderbuss,  is  of  more  im- 
portance than  the  sublimest  conception  of  moral 
philosophy.  But  still  they  do  not  drive  away 
the  humble  prophet,  if  the  prophet  knows  his 
place.  Dostoevsky  accepted  the  role,  since  it 
gave  him  still  the  opportunity  of  displaying  his 
refractory  nature  in  the  struggle  with  Liberal 
literature.  He  sang  paeans,  made  protests, 
uttered  absurdities — and  worse  than  absurdities. 
For  instance,  he  counselled  all  the  Slav  peoples 
to  unite  under  the  aegis  of  Russia,  assuring  them 
that  only  tlius  would  full  independence  be  guar- 
anteed them,  and  the  right  of  shaping  themselves 
by  their  own  culture,  and  so  on — and  that  in  the 
face  of  the  millions  of  Polish  Slavs  living  in 
Russia.  Or  again,  the  Moscozo  Gazette  gives  its 
opinion  that  it  would  be  well  for  the  Crimean 
Tartars  to  emigrate  to  Turkey,  since  it  would 
then  be  possible  for  Russians  to  settle  in  the 
peninsula.  Dostoevsky  catches  up  this  original 
idea  with  enthusiasm.  '  Indeed,'  he  says,  '  on 
political  and  state  and  similar  considerations ' 
— I  do  not  know  how  it  is  with  other  people,  but 


THE  GIFT  OF  PROPHECY  71 

when  I  hear  such  words  as  '  state '  and  '  poHtical ' 
on  Dostoevsky's  lips,  I  cannot  help  smiling — 
'  it  is  necessary  to  expel  the  Tartars  and  to 
settle  Russians  on  their  lands.'  When  the 
Moscow  Gazette  projects  such  a  measure,  it  is  in- 
telligible. But  Dostoevsky  !  Dostoevsky  who 
called  himself  a  Christian,  who  so  passionately 
preaches  love  to  one's  neighbour,  self-abase- 
ment, self-renunciation,  who  taught  that  Russia 
must  '  serve  the  nations  ' — how  could  he  be 
taken  with  an  idea  so  rapacious  ?  And  indeed 
almost  all  his  political  ideas  have  the  mark  of 
rapacity  upon  them  :  to  grab  and  grab,  and 
still  to  grab.  ...  As  the  occasion  demands,  he 
now  expresses  the  hope  that  we  may  have 
Germany's  friendship,  and  again  threatens  her  ; 
now  he  argues  that  we  have  need  of  England, 
and  again  he  asserts  that  we  could  do  without 
her, — just  like  a  leader-writer  in  a  bien-pensant 
provincial  paper.  One  thing  alone  makes  itself 
felt  among  all  these  ludicrous  and  eternally  con- 
tradictory assertions, — Dostoevsky  understands 
nothing,  absolutely  nothing,  about  politics,  and 
moreover,  he  has  nothing  at  all  to  do  with 
politics.  He  is  forced  to  go  in  tow  of  others  who, 
compared  with  him,  are  utter  nonentities,  and  he 
goes.  Even  his  ambition — and  he  had  a  colossal 
ambition,  an  ambition  unique  in  its  kind,  as 
befitted  a  universal  man — suffers  not  one  whit : 
chiefly  because  men  expected  prophecy  from 
him,  because  the  next  title  to  that  of  a  great 
writer  is  that  of  a  prophet,  and  because  a  ring 


72  THE  GIFT  OF  PROPHECY 

of  conviction  and  a  loud  voice  are  the  signs  of 
the  prophetic  gift.  Dostoevsky  could  speak 
aloud  :  he  could  also  speak  with  the  tone  of  one 
who  knows  secrets,  and  of  one  with  authority. 
One  learns  much  in  the  underworld.  All  these 
things  served  him.  Men  took  the  poet-laureate 
of  the  existing  order  for  the  inspirer  of  thoughts 
and  the  governor  of  Russia's  remotest  destinies. 
It  was  enough  for  Dostoevsky.  It  was  even 
necessary  for  Dostoevsky.  He  knew  of  course 
that  he  was  no  prophet ;  but  he  knew  that  there 
had  never  been  one  on  earth,  and  that  those  who 
were  prophets  had  no  better  right  to  the  title 
than  he. 

Ill 

I  will  permit  myself  to  remind  the  reader  of 
Tolstoi's  letter  to  his  son,  lately  pubhshed  by 
the  latter  in  the  newspapers.  It  is  very  interest- 
ing. Once  more,  not  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
practical  man  who  has  to  decide  the  questions 
of  the  day — from  this  standpoint  Tolstoi, 
Dostoevsky,  and  their  similars  are  quite  use- 
less— but  man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone. 

Even  now  in  the  terrible  days  througli  which 
we  have  to  live,  now.  if  you  will,  more  than  ever 
before,  one  cannot  read  newspapers  alone,  nor 
think  only  of  the  awful  surprises  which  to- 
morrow prepares  for  us.  To  every  one  is  left 
an  hour  of  leisure  between  the  reading  of  news- 
papers and  party  programmes,  if  it  be  not  an 
hour  in  the  day  when  the  noise  of  events  and  the 


THE  GIFT  OF  PROPHECY  73 

pressure  of  immediate  work  distracts,  then  an 
hour  in  the  deep  night,  when  everything  that 
was  possible  has  been  abeady  done,  and  every- 
thing that  was  required  has  been  said.  Then 
come  flying  in  the  old  thoughts  and  questions, 
frightened  away  by  business,  and  for  the 
thousandth  time  one  returns  to  the  mystery  of 
human  genius  and  human  greatness.  Where 
and  how  far  can  genius  know  and  accomplish 
more  than  ordinary  men  ? 

Then  Tolstoi's  letter,  which  during  the  day 
aroused  only  anger  and  indignation, — is  it  not 
outrageous  and  revolting,  think  some,  that  in 
the  great  collision  of  forces  which  contend  with 
one  another  in  Russia,  Tolstoi  cannot  distinguish 
the  right  force  from  the  wrong,  but  stigmatises 
all  the  struggling  combatants  by  the  one  name 
of  ungodly  ?  During  the  day,  I  say,  it  is  surely 
outrageous :  in  the  daytime  we  would  like  Tolstoi 
to  be  with  us  and  for  us,  because  we  are  convinced 
that  we  and  we  alone  are  seeking  the  truth,  nay, 
that  we  know  the  truth,  while  our  enemies  are 
defending  evil  and  falsehood,  whether  in  malice 
or  in  ignorance.  But  this  is  during  the  day. 
In  the  night-time,  things  are  changed.  One 
remembers  that  Goethe  also  overlooked,  simply 
did  not  notice,  the  great  French  Revolution. 
True,  he  was  a  German  who  lived  far  from  Paris, 
while  Tolstoi  lives  close  to  Moscow,  where  men, 
women,  and  children  have  been  shot,  cut  down, 
and  burnt  alive.  Moreover,  there  is  no  doubt 
that  Tolstoi  has  overlooked  not  merely  Moscow, 


74  THE  GIFT  OF  PROPHECY 

but  everything  that  went  before  Moscow. 
What  is  happening  now  does  not  seem  to  him 
important  or  extraordinary.  For  him  only  that 
is  important  to  which  he,  Tolstoi,  has  set  his 
hand  :  all  that  occurs  outside  and  beside  him, 
for  him  has  no  existence.  This  is  the  great  pre- 
rogative of  great  men.  And  sometimes  it  seems 
to  me — perhaps  it  is  only  that  I  would  have  it 
seem  so — as  though  there  were  in  that  preroga- 
tive a  deep  and  hidden  meaning. 

When  we  have  no  more  strength  in  us  to  listen 
to  the  endless  tales  of  horrible  atrocities  which 
have  already  been  committed,  and  to  anticipate 
in  imagination  all  that  the  future  holds  in  store 
for  us,  then  we  recall  Tolstoi  and  his  indifference. 
It  is  not  in  our  human  power  to  return  the 
murdered  fathers  and  mothers  to  tlie  children 
nor  the  children  to  their  fathers  and  mothers. 
Nor  stands  it  even  in  our  power  to  revenge  our- 
selves upon  the  murderers,  nor  will  vengeance 
reconcile  every  one  to  his  loss.  And  we  try  no 
longer  to  think  with  logic,  and  to  seek  a  justifica- 
tion of  the  horrors  there  where  there  is  and  can 
be  none.  What  if  we  ask  ourselves  whether 
Tolstoi  and  Goethe  did  not  see  the  Revolution 
and  did  not  suffer  its  pain,?,  only  because  they 
saw  something  else,  something,  it  may  even  be, 
more  necessary  and  important  ?  Maybe  there 
are  indeed  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth 
than  are  dreamed  of  in  our  philosophy. 

Now  we  may  return  to  Dostoevsky  and  his 
'  ideas '  ;    we  may  call  them  fearlessly  by  the 


THE  GIFT  OF  PROPHECY  75 

names  which  they  deserve,  for  though  Dosto- 
evsky  is  a  writer  of  genius,  this  does  not  mean 
that  we  must  forget  our  daily  needs.  The  night 
and  the  day  have  each  their  rights.  Dostoevsky 
wanted  to  be  a  prophet,  he  wanted  people  to 
listen  to  him  and  cry  '  Hosanna  ! '  because,  1 
say  again,  he  thought  that  if  men  had  ever  cried 
'  Hosanna  ! '  to  any  one,  then  there  was  no 
reason  why  he,  Dostoevsky,  should  be  denied 
the  honour.  That  is  the  reason  why  in  the 
'seventies  he  made  his  appearance  in  the  new  role 
of  a  preacher  of  Christianity,  and  not  ol"  Chris- 
tianity merely,  but  of  orthodoxy. 

Again,  1  would  draAv  attention  to  the  far  from 
accidental  circumstances  that  his  preaching  co- 
incided with  the '  serenest '  period  of  his  life.  He 
who  had  in  time  past  been  a  homeless  \/anderer, 
a  poor  man  who  had  not  where  to  lay  his  head, 
had  provided  himself  with  a  famih?^  and  a  house 
of  his  own,  even  with  money  (for  his  wife  was  sav- 
ing). The  failure  had  become  a  celebrity ;  the 
convict  a  full  citizen.  The  underworld,  where- 
into  his  fate  had  but  lately  driven  him,  it  might 
seem  for  ever,  now  appeared  to  him  a  phantas- 
magoria which  never  had  been  real.  In  the 
galleys  and  the  underworld  had  been  born  within 
him  a  great  hunger  for  God  which  lived  long  ; 
there  he  fought  a  great  fight,  the  fight  of  life 
against  death ;  there  for  the  first  time  were 
made  the  new  and  awful  experiments  which 
allied  Dostoevsky  with  everything  that  is  re- 
bellious and  restless  on  earth.      What  Dosto- 


76  THE  GIFT  OF  PROPHECY 

evsky  wrote  during  the  closing  years  of  his  hfe 
(not  merely  The  Journal  of  an  Author,  but  The 
Brothers  Karamazov  as  well)  has  value  only  in  so 
far  as  Dostoevsky's  past  is  reflected  therein. 
He  made  no  new  step  onwards.  As  he  was,  so  he 
remained,  on  the  eve  of  a  great  truth.  But  in 
the  old  days  that  did  not  suffice  him,  he  hungered 
for  something  beyond  ;  but  now  he  does  not 
want  to  struggle,  and  he  cannot  explain  to  him- 
self or  to  others  what  is  really  happening  within 
him.  He  pretends  to  be  struggling  still,  nay, 
more,  he  behaves  as  though  he  had  won  the  final 
victory,  and  demands  that  his  triumph  should  be 
acknowledged  by  public  opinion.  He  loves  to 
think  that  the  night  is  already  past  and  the 
actual  day  begun :  and  the  galleys  and  the  under- 
world, reminding  him  that  the  day  is  not  yet, 
are  no  more.  All  the  evidences  of  a  complete 
illusion  of  victory  seem  to  be  there — let  him 
only  choose  the  text  and  preach  !  Dostoevsky 
clutched  at  orthodoxy.  Why  not  Christianity  ? 
Because  Christianity  is  not  for  him  who  has  a 
house,  a  family,  money,  fame,  and  a  father- 
land. Christ  said  :  '  Let  him  leave  all  that  he 
hath  and  follow  me.'  But  Dostoevsky  was 
afraid  of  solitude,  he  desired  to  be  the  prophet  of 
modern,  settled  men  to  whom  pure  Christianity, 
unadapted  to  the  needs  of  civilised  existence  in 
a  governed  state,  is  unfitted.  How  should  a 
Christian  seize  Constantinople,  drive  out  the 
Tartars  from  the  Crimea,  reduce  all  Slavs  to  the 
condition  of  the  Poles,  and  the  rest — for  all  the 


THE  GIFT  OF  PROPHECY  77 

projects  of  Dostoevsky.and  the  Moscow  Gazette 
defy  enumeration  ?  So,  before  accepting  the 
Gospel,  he  must  explain  it.  .  .  . 

However  strange  it  may  appear,  it  must  be 
confessed  that  one  cannot  find  in  the  whole  of 
literature  a  single  man  who  is  prepared  to  accept 
the  Gospel  as  a  whole,  without  interpretation. 
One  man  wants  to  seize  Constantinople  accord- 
ing to  the  Gospel,  another  to  justify  the  existing 
order,  a  third  to  exalt  himself  or  to  thrust  down 
his  enemy  ;  and  each  considers  it  as  his  right  to 
diminish  from,  or  even  to  supplement,  the  text  of 
Holy  Writ.  I  have,  of  course,  only  those  in  view 
who  acknowledge,  at  least  in  word,  the  divine 
origin  of  the  New  Testament ;  since  he  who  sees 
in  the  Gospel  only  one  of  the  more  or  less  re- 
markable books  of  his  library,  naturally  has  the 
right  to  subject  it  to  whatever  critical  operations 
he  may  choose. 

But  here  we  have  Tolstoi,  Dostoevsky,  and 
Vladimir  •  Soloviev.  It  is  generally  believed, 
and  the  belief  is  particularly  supported  and 
developed  by  the  most  recent  criticism,  that 
Tolstoi  alone  rationalised  Christianity,  while 
Dostoevsky  and  Soloviev  accepted  it  in  all  the 
fullness  of  its  mysticism,  denying  reason  the 
right  to  separate  truth  from  falsehood  in  the 
Gospel.  I  consider  this  belief  mistaken  :  for 
Dostoevsky  and  Soloviev  were  afraid  to  accept 
the  Gospel  as  the  fountain  of  knowledge,  and 
relied  much  more  upon  their  own  reason  and 
their  experience  of  life  than  upon  the  words  of 


78  THE  GIFT  OF  PROPHECY 

Christ.  But,  if  there  was  a  man  among  us  who, 
though  but  in  part,  took  the  risk  of  accepting  the 
mysterious  and  obviously  dangerous  words  of  the 
Gospel  precepts,  that  man  was  Leo  Tolstoi.  I 
will  explain  myself. 

We  are  told  that  Tolstoi  made  the  attempt, 
in  his  works  published  abroad,  to  explain  the 
miracles  of  the  Gospel  in  a  way  intelligible  to 
human  reason.  Dostoevsky  and  Soloviev,  on 
the  other  hand,  readily  accepted  the  inexplicable. 
But  generally  the  miracles  of  the  Gospel  attract 
the  people  who  believe  least,  for  it  is  impossible 
to  repeat  the  miracles,  and  this  being  so,  then  it 
follows  that  a  merely  external  faith  is  sufficient, 
a  mere  verbal  assertion.  A  man  says  that  he 
believes  in  miracles  :  his  reputation  as  a  religious 
man  is  made,  both  in  his  own  mind  and  in  others', 
and  as  for  the  rest  of  the  Gospel,  there  remains 
'  interpretation.'  Consider,  for  instance,  the 
doctrine  of  non-resistance  to  evil.  It  need  not 
be  said  that  the  doctrine  of  non-resistance  is  the 
most  terrible,  and  the  most  irrational,  and  mys- 
terious thing  that  we  read  in  the  Gospel.  All  our 
reasoning  soul  is  indignant  at  the  thought  that 
full  material  freedom  should  be  given  to  the 
murderer  to  accomplish  his  murderous  acts. 
How  can  you  allow  a  murderer  to  kill  an  innocent 
child  before  your  very  eyes,  and  yet  not  draw 
the  sword  ?  Who  has  the  right  to  give  that 
abominable  precept  ?  Soloviev  ^  and  Dostoevsky 
alike  repeat  that  question,  the  one  in  a  disguised, 
the  other  in  an  open  attack  on  Tolstoi.  Yet 
1   War  and  Christianity,  by  Vladimir  Soloviev. 


THE  GIFT  OF  PROPHECY  79 

since  the  Gospel  plainly  declares  '  Resist  not  evil/ 
both  of  our  believers  in  miracles  have  suddenly 
remembered  reason  and  turned  to  its  testimony, 
knowing  that  reason  will  naturally  destroy  any 
meaning  whatever  that  may  be  in  the  precept. 
In  other  words,  they  repeat  the  question  of  the 
doubting  Jews  concerning  Christ :  '  Who  is  He 
that  speaketh  as  one  having  authority  ?  '  God 
commanded  Abraham  that  he  should  offer  up  his 
son.  By  his  reason,  his  human  reason,  Abraham 
refused  to  acknowledge  any  intelligible  meaning 
in  the  cruel  command,  bat  yet  made  ready  to  act 
according  to  the  word  of  God  and  made  no  at- 
tempt to  rid  himself  of  the  hard  and  inhuman 
obligation  by  cunning  interpretation.  But  Dos- 
toevsky  and  Soloviev  refuse  to  fulfil  Christ's 
demands  so  soon  as  they  find  no  justification  in 
the  human  reason.  Yet  they  say  that  they  be- 
lieve that  Lazarus  was  raised  from  the  dead  and 
that  the  man  who  was  sick  of  a  palsy  was  cured, 
and  all  the  other  miracles  which  are  related  by 
the  Apostles.  Why  then  does  their  belief  end 
just  at  the  point  where  it  begins  to  place  obliga- 
tions upon  them  ?  Why  the  sudden  recourse  to 
reason,  when  we  know  exactly  that  Dostoevsky 
came  to  the  Gospels  only  to  be  rid  of  the  power  of 
reason  ?  But  that  was  in  the  days  of  the  under- 
world. Now  the  '  serene  '  period  of  his  life  has 
begun.  But  Soloviev,  evidently,  had  never  even 
known  the  underworld.  Only  Tolstoi  boldly 
and  resolutely  tries  to  test  the  truth  of  the  Chris- 
tian teaching,  not  in  his  thouglits  alone,  but  in 
part  in  his  life  also.     From  the  human  point  of 


80  THE  GIFT  OF  PROPHECY 

view  it  is  mad  to  make  no  resistance  to  evil.    He 
knows  that  every  whit  as  well  as  Dostoevsky, 
Soloviev  and  the  rest  of  his  many  opponents. 
But  he  is  really  seeking  in  the  Gospels  that  divine 
madness,  since  human  reason  does  not  satisfy 
him.     Tolstoi  began  to  follow  the  Gospel  in  that 
clouded  period  of  his  life  when  he  was  haunted  by 
the  phantoms  of  Ivan  Ilyich  and  Pozdnyshiev. 
Here  belief  in  miracles,  belief  in  the  abstract, 
divorced  from  life,  avails  nothing.     For  belief's 
sake  one  must  surrender  all  that  is  dearest — even 
a  son — to  the  sacrifice.     Who  is  He  that  spake 
as  one  having  authority  ?    We  cannot  now  verify 
whether  He  did  in  truth  raise  Lazarus  from  the 
dead,  or  satisfy  thousands  with  a  few  handfuls  of 
loaves.     But  if  we  unhesitatingly  perform  His 
precepts,  then  we  may  discover  whether  He  has 
given  us  the  truth.  ...  So  it  was  with  Tolstoi  ; 
and  he  turned  to  the  Gospel  which  is  the  sole  and 
original  source  of  Christianity.    But  Dostoevsky 
turned  to  the  Slavophiles  and  the  teachings  of 
their  state-religion.     OrMiodoxy  infallible,  not 
Catholicism  nor  Protestantism  nor  even  simple 
Christianity ;     and    then,    the    original    idea : 
Russland,  Eussland  iiber  alles.     Tolstoi  could 
prophesy  nothing  in  history,   but  then,   as  if 
deliberately,    he   does   not   interfere   with   the 
historical   life.      For   him   our   present   reality 
does  not  exist :  he  concentrates  himself  wholly 
upon  the  riddle  which  God  set  Abraham.     But 
Dostoevsky  desired   at   all   costs  to  prophesy, 
prophesied  constantly  and  was  constantly  mis- 


THE  GIFT  OF  PROPHECY  81 

taken.  We  have  not  taken  Constantinople,  we 
have  not  united  the  Slavs,  and  even  the  Tartars 
still  live  in  the  Crimea.  He  terrified  us  by 
prophesying  that  Europe  would  be  drenched  in 
rivers  of  blood  because  of  the  warfare  between 
the  classes,  while  in  Russia,  thanks  to  our 
Russian  ideal  of  universal  humanity,  not  only 
would  our  internal  problems  be  peacefully 
solved,  but  a  new  unheard-of  word  would  still  be 
found  whereby  we  should  save  hapless  Europe. 
A  quarter  of  a  century  has  passed.  So  far 
nothing  has  happened  in  Europe.  But  we  are 
drowning  ourselves,  literally  drowning  ourselves, 
with  blood.  Not  only  is  our  alien  population 
oppressed,  Slav  and  non-Slav  alike,  but  our  own 
brother  is  tortured,  the  miserable  starving 
Russian  peasant  who  understands  nothing  at  all. 
In  Moscow,  in  the  heart  of  Russia,  women, 
children,  and  old  men  have  been  shot  down. 
Where  now  is  the  Russian  universal  soul  of 
which  Dostoevsky  prophesied  in  his  speech  on 
Pushkin  ?  Where  is  love,  where  are  the  Chris- 
tian precepts  ?  We  see  only  '  Governmen- 
talism,'  over  which  the  Western  nations  also 
fought ;  but  they  fought  with  means  less  cruel 
and  less  hostile  to  civiHsation.  Russia  will  again 
have  to  learn  from  the  West  as  she  had  to  learn 
more  than  once  before.  And  Dostoevsky  would 
have  done  far  better  had  he  never  attempted 
to  prophesy. 

But  there  is  no  great  harm  done  even  if  he  did 
prophesy.     I  am  glad  with  all  my  heart  even 

F 


82  THE  GIFT  OF  PROPHECY 

now  that  he  rested  a  httle  while  from  the  galleys 
at  the  end  of  his  life.  I  am  deeply  convinced 
that  even  had  he  remained  in  the  underworld 
until  the  day  of  his  death,  yet  he  would  have 
found  no  solution  of  the  questions  which  tor- 
mented him.  However  much  energy  of  soul  a 
man  puts  into  his  work,  he  will  still  remain  '  on 
the  eve  '  of  truth,  and  will  not  find  the  solution 
he  desires.  That  is  the  law  of  human  kind. 
And  Dostoevsky's  preaching  has  done  no  harm. 
Those  listened  to  him  who,  even  without  his 
voice,  would  have  marched  on  Constantinople, 
oppressed  the  Poles,  and  made  ready  the  suffer- 
ings which  are  necessary  to  the  soul  of  the 
peasant.  Though  Dostoevsky  gave  them  his 
sanction,  on  the  whole  he  adds  nothing  to  them. 
They  had  no  need  of  literary  sanction,  quite 
correctly  judging  that  in  practical  matters  not 
the  printed  page,  but  bayonets  and  artillery  are 
of  deciding  value. 

All  that  he  had  to  tell,  Dostoevsky  told  us  in 
his  novels,  which  even  now,  twenty-five  years 
after  his  death,  attract  all  those  who  would 
wrest  from  life  her  secrets.  And  the  title  of 
prophet,  which  he  sought  so  diligently,  con- 
sidering that  it  was  his  by  right,  did  not  suit 
him  at  all.  Prophets  are  Bismarcks,  but  they 
are  Chancellors  too.  The  first  in  the  village  is 
the  first  in  Rome.  ...  Is  a  Dostoevsky  doomed 
eternally  to  be  '  on  the  eve '  ?  Let  us  once 
more  try  to  reject  logic,  this  time  perhaps  not 
logic  alone,  and  say  :   '  So  let  it  be.' 


PENULTIMATE   WORDS 


PENULTIMATE   WORDS 


De  omnibus  diibitandum 

There  are  but  few  orthodox  Hegelians  left 
among  philosophers  nowadays,  yet  Hegel  is  still 
supreme  over  the  minds  of  our  contemporaries. 
It  may  even  be  that  certain  of  his  ideas  have 
taken  deeper  root  nowadays  than  when  Hegeli- 
anism  was  in  full  bloom  :  for  instance,  the  con- 
ception that  history  is  the  unfolding  of  the  idea 
in  reality,  or,  to  put  it  more  briefly  and  in  terms 
more  familiar  to  the  modern  mind — the  idea  of 
progress.  Try  to  convince  an  educated  person 
of  the  contrary  :  you  are  sure  to  be  worsted. 
But,  de  omnibus  dubitandum,  which  means  in 
other  words,  that  doubt  is  called  upon  to  fulfil 
its  mission  above  all  in  those  cases  where  a  con- 
viction is  particularly  strong  and  unshakable. 
Therefore  one  must  admit,  whether  he  will  or 
no,  that  progress  so  called — the  development  of 
mankind  in  time — is  a  fiction. 

We  have  wireless  telegraphy,  radium  and  the 
rest,  yet  we  stand  no  higher  than  the  Romans 
or  the  Greeks  of  old.  You  admit  this  ?  Then, 
one  step  further  :    although  we  have  wireless 

85 


86  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

telegraphy  and  all  the  other  blessings  of  civilisa- 
tion, still  we  stand  no  higher  than  red-  or  black- 
skinned  savages.  You  protest :  but  the  prin- 
ciple compels.  You  began  to  doubt :  then 
what  is  the  use  of  drawing  back  ? 

For  myself,  I  must  confess  that  the  idea  of  the 
spiritual  perfection  of  savages  entered  my  mind 
but  lately,  when,  for  the  first  time  for  many 
years,  I  looked  through  the  works  of  Tylor, 
Lubbock  and  Spencer.  They  speak  with  such 
certainty  of  the  advantages  of  our  spiritual 
organisation,  and  have  such  sincere  contempt 
for  the  moral  misery  of  the  savage,  that  in  spite 
of  myself  stole  in  the  thought :  Is  it  not  exactly 
here,  where  all  are  so  certain  that  no  one  ever 
examines  the  question,  that  the  source  of  error 
is  to  be  found  ?  High  time  to  recall  Descartes 
and  his  rule  !  And  as  soon  as  I  began  to  doubt, 
all  my  former  certainty — of  course  I  fully  shared 
the  opinion  of  the  English  anthropologists — 
disappeared  in  a  moment.  ...  It  began  to 
appear  that  the  savage  indeed  is  higher  and 
more  important  than  our  savants,  and  not  our 
materialists  only,  as  Professor  Paulsen  thinks, 
but  our  idealists,  metaphysicians,  mystics,  and 
even  our  convinced  missionaries  (sincere  be- 
lievers, not  the  profit-mongering  sort),  whom 
Europe  sends  forth  into  the  world  to  enlighten 
the  backward  brethren.  It  seemed  to  me  that  the 
credit  transactions  common  among  savages,  with 
a  promise  to  pay  in  the  world  beyond  the  grave, 
have  a  deep  meaning.     And  human  sacrifices  ! 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  87 

In  them  Spencer  sees  a  barbarity,  as  an  educated 
European  should.  I  also  see  m  them  barbarity, 
because  I  also  am  a  European  and  have  a  scien- 
tific education.  But  I  deeply  envy  their  bar- 
barity, and  curse  the  cultivation  which  has 
herded  me  together  with  believing  missionaries, 
idealist,  materialist,  and  positivist  philosophers, 
into  the  narrow  fold  of  the  sultry  and  disgusting 
apprehensible  world.  We  may  write  books  to 
prove  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  but  our  wives 
won't  follow  us  to  the  other  world  :  they  will 
prefer  to  endure  the  widow's  lot  here  on  the 
earth.  Our  morality,  based  on  religion,  forbids 
us  to  hurry  into  eternity.  And  so  in  every- 
thing. We  are  guessing,  at  the  best  we  are 
sicklied  with  dreams,  but  our  life  passes  out- 
side our  guesses  and  our  dreams.  One  man 
still  accepts  the  rites  of  the  Church,  however 
strange  they  may  be,  and  seriously  imagines 
that  he  is  brought  into  contact  with  other 
worlds.  Beyond  the  rites  no  step  is  taken. 
Kant  died  when  he  was  eighty  ;  had  it  not  been 
for  cholera,  Hegel  would  have  lived  a  hundred 
years  ;  while  the  savages — the  young  ones  kill 
the  old  and  ...  I  dare  not  complete  the  sen- 
tence for  fear  of  offending  sensitive  ears.  Again 
I  recall  Descartes  and  his  rule  :  who  is  right, 
the  savages  or  we  ?  And  if  the  savages  are 
right,  can  history  be  the  unfolding  of  the  idea  ? 
And  is  not  the  conception  of  progress  in  time 
(that  is  the  development  from  the  past  to  the 
present   and  to  the  future)  the  purest  error  ? 


88  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

Perhaps,  and  most  probably,  there  is  develop- 
ment, but  the  direction  of  this  development  is 
in  a  line  perpendicular  to  the  line  of  time.  The 
base  of  the  perpendicular  may  be  any  human 
personality.  May  God  and  the  reader  forgive 
one  the  obscurity  of  the  last  words.  I  hope  the 
clarity  of  the  foregoing  exposition  will  to  some 
extent  atone  for  it. 


II 

Self-renunciation  and  Megalomania 

We  are  obliged  to  think  that  nothing  certain 
can  be  said  either  of  self-renunciation  or  of 
megalomania,  though  each  one  of  us  in  his  own 
experience  knows  something  of  the  former  as 
well  as  of  the  latter.  But  it  is  well  known  that 
the  impossibility  of  solving  a  question  never  yet 
kept  people  from  reflecting.  On  the  contrary  : 
to  us  the  most  alluring  questions  are  those  to 
which  there  is  no  actual,  no  universally  valid, 
answer.  T  hope  that  sooner  or  later,  philosophy 
will  be  thus  defined,  in  contrast  to  science  : — 
philosophy  is  the  teaching  of  truths  which  are 
binding  on  none.  Thereby  the  accusation  so 
often  made  against  philosophy  will  be  removed, 
that  philosophy  properly  consists  of  a  series 
of  mutually  exclusive  opinions.  This  is  true, 
but  she  must  be  praised  for  it,  not  blamed  : 
there  is  nothing  bad  in  it,  but  good,  a  very  great 
deal  of  good.     On  the  other  hand,  it  is  bad, 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  89 

extremely  bad,  that  science  should  consist  of 
truths  universally  binding.  For  every  obliga- 
tion is  a  constraint.  Temporarily,  one  can 
submit  to  a  restraint,  put  on  a  corset,  fetters  ; 
one  can  agree  to  anything  temporarily.  But 
who  will  voluntarily  admit  the  mastery  over 
himself  of  an  eternal  law  ?  Even  from  the  quiet 
and  clear  Spinoza  I  sometimes  hear  a  deep  sigh, 
and  I  think  that  he  is  longing  for  freedom— he 
who  wasted  all  his  life,  all  his  genius  in  the 
glorification  of  necessity.  .  .  .  With  such  an 
introduction  one  may  say  what  he  pleases. 

It  seems  to  me  that  self-renunciation  and 
megalomania,  however  little  they  resemble  one 
another  apparently,  may  be  observed  succes- 
sively, even  simultaneously,  in  one  and  the  same 
person.  The  ascetic,  who  has  denied  Hfe  and 
humbles  himself  before  everybody,  and  the 
madman  (like  Nietzsche  or  Dostoevsky),  who 
affirms  that  he  is  the  light,  the  salt  of  the  earth, 
the  first  in  the  v/hole  world  or  even  in  the  whole 
universe — both  reach  their  madness — I  hope 
there  is  no  necessity  to  demonstrate  that  self- 
renunciation  as  well  as  megalomania  is  a  kind 
of  madness — under  conditions  for  the  most  part 
identical.  The  world  does  not  satisfy  the  man 
and  he  begins  to  seek  for  a  better.  All  serious 
seeking  brings  a  man  to  lonely  paths,  and  lonely 
paths,  it  is  well  known,  end  in  a  great  wall 
which  sets  a  fatal  bound  to  man's  curiosity. 
Then  arises  the  question,  how  shall  a  man  pass 
beyond  the  wall,  by  overcoming  either  the  law 


90  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

of  impenetrability  or  the  equally  invincible  law 
of  gravity,  in  other  words,  how  shall  a  man 
become  infinitely  small  or  infinitely  great  ? 
The  first  way  is  that  of  self-renunciation  :  I 
want  nothing,  I  myself  am  nothing,  I  am  in- 
finitely small,  and  therefore  I  can  pass  through 
the  infinitely  small  pores  of  the  wall. 

The  other  way  is  megalomania.  I  am  in- 
finitely strong,  infinitely  great,  I  can  do  all 
things,  I  can  shatter  the  wall,  I  can  step  over  it, 
though  it  be  higher  than  all  the  mountains  of 
the  earth  and  though  it  has  hitherto  dismayed 
the  strongest  and  the  bravest.  This  is  probably 
the  origin  of  the  two  most  mysterious  and 
mighty  spiritual  transformations.  There  is  no 
single  religion  upon  which  are  not  more  or  less 
clearly  impressed  the  traces  of  these  methods 
of  man's  struggle  with  the  poverty  of  his  powers. 
In  ascetic  religions  the  tendency  to  self-renuncia- 
tion predominates  :  Buddhism  glorifies  the  sup- 
pression of  the  individual  and  has  for  its  ideal 
Nirvana.  The  Greeks  dreamed  of  Titans  and 
heroes.  The  Jews  consider  themselves  the 
chosen  people  and  await  the  Messiah.  As  for  the 
Gospel,  it  is  hard  to  say  to  which  method  of 
struggle  it  gives  the  preference.  On  the  one 
hand  are  the  great  miracles,  the  raising  from  the 
dead,  the  healing  of  the  sick,  the  power  over  the 
winds  and  the  sea  ;  on  the  other  :  '  Blessed  are 
the  poor  in  spirit.'  The  Son  of  God  who  will  sit 
on  the  right  hand  of  power  now  lives  in  the  com- 
pany of  publicans,  beggars,  and  harlots,  and  serves 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  91 

them.  '  Who  is  not  for  us,  is  against  us  '  ;  the 
promise  to  thrust  down  his  enemies  into  the  fiery 
hell ;  eternal  torment  for  blasphemy  against  the 
Holy  Spirit,  and  equal  with  these  the  exhorta- 
tion to  the  extreme  of  humility  and  love  to  the 
enemy  :  '  Turn  to  him  the  other  cheek  also.' 
Throughout,  the  Gospel  is  permeated  with  con- 
tradictions, which  are  not  extraneous  and  his- 
torical, concerned  with  facts,  but  intrinsic,  con- 
tradictions of  mood,  of  '  ideals,'  as  the  modern 
man  would  say.  What  is  in  one  chapter  praised 
as  the  noblest  task  is  in  the  next  degraded  to  an 
unworthy  labour.  It  is  in  no  way  strange  that 
the  most  opposite  teachings  should  find  justifica- 
tion in  this  little  book,  which  is  half  composed  of 
repetitions.  The  Inquisitors,  the  Jesuits,  and 
the  old  ascetics  called  themselves  Christians  ; 
so  do  the  modern  Protestants  and  our  Russian 
sectaries.  To  a  greater  or  less  degree  they  all 
are  right,  even  the  Protestants.  Such  contra- 
dictory elements  are  intertwined  in  the  Gospel, 
that  men,  above  all  those  who  travel  the  high 
road,  who  can  move  in  one  direction  only,  and 
under  one  conspicuous  flag,  who  have  become 
accustomed  to  believe  in  the  unity  of  reason  and 
the  infallibility  of  logical  laws,  could  never  fully 
grasp  the  teaching  of  the  Gospel,  and  always  as- 
pired to  give  to  the  words  and  deeds  of  Christ  a 
uniform  explanation  which  should  exclude  con- 
tradictions, and  more  or  less  correspond  to  the 
common  conceptions  of  the  work  and  problems  of 
life.     They  read  in  the  mysterious  book,  '  Have 


92  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

faith  and  thou  shalt  say  to  this  mountain  :  be 
thou  removed,'  and  understood  it  to  mean  that 
always,  every  hour  and  every  minute,  one  must 
think  and  desire  the  self-same  thing,  prescribed 
beforehand  and  fully  defined  ;  whereas  in  these 
words  the  Gospel  allows  and  commends  the 
maddest  and  most  perilous  experiments.  That 
which  is,  did  not  exist  for  Christ ;  and  only  that 
existed,  which  is  not. 

The  old  Roman,  Pilate,  who  was  apparently  an 
educated  man,  clever  and  not  bad  at  heart, 
though  weak  in  character,  could  neither  under- 
stand nor  elucidate  the  cause  of  the  strange 
struggle  which  took  place  before  him.  With  his 
whole  heart  he  pitied  the  pale  Jew  before  him, 
who  was  guilty  of  nothing.  '  What  is  truth  ?  ' 
he  asked  Christ.  Christ  did  not  answer  him,  nor 
could  He  answer,  not  through  ignorance,  as  the 
heathen  desired  to  believe,  but  because  that 
question  cannot  be  answered  in  words.  It 
would  have  been  necessary  to  take  Pilate's  head, 
and  turn  it  towards  the  other  side,  in  order  that 
he  might  see  what  he  had  never  seen  before. 
Or,  still  better  ;  to  have  used  the  method  to 
which  the  hunch-backed  pony  turns  in  the  fairy 
tale,  in  order  to  change  sleepy  Ivanushka  into  a 
wizard  and  a  beauty  :  first,  to  plunge  him  into  a 
cauldron  of  boiling  milk,  then  into  another  of 
boiling  water,  then  a  third  of  ice-cold  water. 
There  is  every  reason  to  suppose  that  with  this 
preliminary  preparation  Pilate  would  have  begun 
to  act  differently,  and  I  think  the  hunch-backed 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  93 

pony  would  agree  that  self-renunciation  and 
megalomania  would  be  a  fair  substitute  for  the 
cauldrons  of  the  tale. 

Great  privations  and  great  illusions  so  change 
the  nature  of  man  that  things  which  seemed 
before  impossible,  become  possible,  and  the  un- 
attainable, attainable. 

Ill 

Eternal  Truths 

In  the  Memorabilia  Xenophon  tells  of  the 
meeting  of  Socrates  with  the  famous  sophist 
Hippias.  When  Hippias  came  to  Socrates,  the 
latter  as  usual  held  forth,  and  as  usual  asked  why 
it  is  that  men  who  wish  to  learn  carpentry  or 
smith's  work  know  to  whom  they  should  apply, 
but  if  they  desire  to  learn  virtue,  cannot  possibly 
find  a  teacher.  Hippias,  who  had  heard  these 
opinions  of  Socrates  many  times  before,  remarked 
ironically:  '  So  you  're  still  saying  the  same  old 
things,  that  I  heard  from  you  years  ago ! ' 
Socrates  understood  and  accepted  the  challenge, 
as  he  always  accepted  challenges  of  this  kind. 
A  dispute  began,  by  which  it  was  demonstrated 
(as  usual  in  Plato  and  Xenophon)  that  Socrates 
was  a  stronger  dialectician  than  his  opponent. 
He  succeeded  in  showing  that  his  conception  of 
justice  was  based  on  the  same  firm  foundation 
as  all  his  other  conceptions,  and  that  convictions 
once  formed,  if  they  are  true,  are  as  little  liable 
to  the  action  of  time  as  noble  metals  to  rust. 


94  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

Socrates  lived  seventy  years.  He  was  once  a 
youth,  once  a  man,  once  a  greybeard.  But 
what  if  he  had  Hved  a  hundred  and  forty  years, 
experienced  once  again  all  the  three  seasons  of 
life,  and  had  again  met  Hippias  ?  Or,  better 
still,  if  the  soul,  as  Socrates  taught,  is  immortal 
and  Socrates  now  lives  somewhere  in  the  moon 
or  Sirius,  or  in  any  other  place  predestined  for 
immortal  souls,  does  he  really  go  on  plaguing 
his  companions  with  discourses  on  justice, 
carpenters,  and  smiths  ?  And  does  he  still 
emerge  victorious  as  of  old  from  the  dispute  with 
Hippias  and  other  persons  who  dare  to  affirm 
that  everything  (human  convictions  included) 
may  be,  and  ought  to  be,  subject  to  the  laws  of 
time,  and  that  mankind  not  only  loses  nothing, 
but  gains  much  by  such  subjection  ? 


IV 

Earth  and  Heaven 

The  word  justice  is  on  all  men's  lips.  But 
do  men  indeed  so  highly  prize  justice  as  one 
would  think,  who  believed  all  that  has  been 
said  and  is  still  being  said  concerning  it  ?  More 
than  this,  is  it  so  highly  appreciated  by  its  sworn 
advocates  and  panegyrists — poets,  philosophers, 
moralists,  theologians — even  by  the  best  of  them, 
the  most  sincere  and  gifted  ?  I  doubt  it,  I 
doubt  it  deeply.  Glance  at  the  works  of  any 
wise  man,  whether  of  the  modern  or  the  ancient 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  95 

world.  Justice,  if  we  understand  it  as  the 
equality  of  all  living  men  before  the  laws  of 
creation — and  how  else  can  wc  understand  it  ? 
— never  occupied  any  one's  attention.  Plato 
never  once  asked  Destiny  why  she  created 
Thersites  contemptible  and  Patroclus  noble. 
Plato  argues  that  men  should  be  just,  but  never 
once  dares  to  arraign  the  gods  for  their  injustice. 
If  we  listen  to  his  discourses,  a  suspicion  will 
steal  into  our  souls  that  justice  is  a  virtue  for 
mortals,  while  the  immortals  have  virtues  of 
their  own  which  have  nothing  in  common  with 
justice.  And  here  is  the  last  trial  of  earthly 
virtue.  We  do  not  know  whether  the  human 
soul  is  mortal  or  immortal.  Some,  we  know, 
believe  in  immortality,  others  laugh  at  the  belief. 
If  it  were  proved  that  they  were  both  in  the 
wrong,  and  that  men's  destinies  after  death  are 
as  unequal  as  they  are  in  life  :  the  successful, 
the  chosen  take  up  their  abode  in  heaven,  the 
others  remain  to  rot  in  the  grave  and  perish 
with  their  mortal  clay.  (It  is  true  that  such 
an  admission  is  made  by  our  Russian  prophet, 
the  priest  of  love  and  justice,  Dostoevsky,  in 
his  Legend  of  the  Grand  Inquisitor.)  Now,  if 
it  should  turn  out  that  Dostoevsky  is  really 
immortal,  while  his  innumerable  disciples  and 
admirers,  the  huge  mass  of  grey  humanity  which 
is  spoken  of  in  The  Grand  Inquisitor,  end  their 
lives  in  death  as  they  began  them  with  birth, 
would  Dostoevsky  himself  (whom  I  have  named 
deliberately  as  the  most  passionate  defender  of 


96  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

the  ideal  of  justice,  though  there  have  been  yet 
more  fervent  and  passionate  and  remarkable 
defenders  of  justice  on  earth  whom  I  ought 
perhaps  to  name,  were  it  not  that  I  would  avoid 
speaking  lightly  of  sacred  things — let  him  who 
finds  Dostoevsky  small,  himself  choose  another) 
— would  Dostoevsky  reconcile  himself  to  such 
an  injustice,  would  he  rise  in  revolt  beyond  the 
grave  against  the  injustice,  or  would  he  forget 
his  poor  brethren  when  he  occupied  the  place 
prepared  for  him  ?  It  is  hard  to  judge  a  priori  : 
a  posteriori  one  would  imagine  that  he  would 
forget. 

And  between  Dostoevsky  and  a  small  pro- 
vincial author  the  gulf  is  colossal ;  the  injustice 
of  the  inequality  cries  out  to  heaven.  Never- 
theless we  take  no  heed,  we  live  on  and  do  not 
cry,  or  if  we  do,  we  cry  very  rarely,  and  then,  to 
tell  the  truth,  it  is  hard  to  say  certainly  why 
we  cry.  Is  it  because  we  would  draw  the  atten- 
tion of  the  indifferent  heaven,  or  is  it  because 
there  are  many  amateurs  of  lamentation  among 
our  neighbours,  like  the  pilgrim  woman  in 
Ostrovsky's  Storm,  who  passionately  loved  to 
hear  a  good  howl  ?  All  these  considerations  will 
seem  particularly  important  to  those  who,  like 
myself  at  the  present  moment — I  cannot  speak 
for  to-morrow — share  Dostoevsky' s  notion  that 
even  if  there  is  immortality,  then  it  is  certainly 
not  for  everybody  but  for  the  few.  Moreover, 
I  follow  Dostoevsky  further  and  admit  that 
they  alone  will  rise  from  the  dead  who  on  the 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  97 

existing  hypotheses  should  expect  the  worse 
fate  after  death.  The  first  here  will  be  the  first 
still,  there,  while  of  the  last  not  even  a  memory 
will  remain.  And  no  one  will  be  found  to 
champion  those  who  have  perished  :  a  Dosto- 
evsky,  a  Tolstoi,  and  all  the  other  '  first '  who 
succeed  in  entering  heaven  will  be  engaged  in 
business  incomparably  more  important. 

So  continue,  if  you  will,  to  take  thought  for 
the  just  arrangement  of  the  world,  and,  after 
the  fashion  of  Plato,  to  make  the  teaching  of 
justice  the  foundation  of  philosophy. 


The  Force  of  Argument 

Schopenhauer  answered  the  question  of  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  in  the  negative.  In  his 
opinion,  man  as  Thing-in-Himself  is  immortal, 
but  as  phenomenon  mortal.  In  other  words,  all 
that  is  individual  in  us  exists  only  in  the  interval 
between  birth  and  death  ;  but  since  each  indi- 
vidual according  to  Schopenhauer's  teaching  is  a 
manifestation  of  '  Will '  or  '  Thing-in -Itself,'  the 
unalterable  and  eternal  principle  which  is  the 
only  reality  of  the  world,  continually  made  object 
in  the  manifold  of  phenomena,  then,  in  so  far  as 
this  principle  is  displayed  in  man,  he  is  eternal. 
This  is  Schopenhauer's  opinion,  evidently  derived 
as  a  logical  conclusion  from  his  general  philo- 
sophic doctrine,  both  from  that  relating  to  the 

G 


98  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

Thing-in-Itself,  and  from  that  which  relates  to 
the  individual.  The  first  part  shall  go  unre- 
garded :  after  all,  if  Schopenhauer  was  mis- 
taken, and  the  Thing-in-Itself  is  mortal,  we  need 
not  weep  over  it,  nor  is  there  any  cause  to  rejoice 
over  its  immortality.  But  here  is  the  individual. 
He  is  deprived  of  his  right  to  immortality,  and 
for  reason  is  alleged  an  argument  which  is  at 
first  sight  irrefutable.  Everything  which  has 
a  beginning  has  an  end  also,  says  Schopenhauer. 
The  individual  has  a  beginning,  birth  ;  therefore 
an  end,  death,  awaits  him.  To  Schopenhauer 
himself  the  general  proposition  as  well  as  the 
conclusion  seemed  so  obvious,  that  he  did  not 
admit  the  possibility  of  mistake  even  for  a 
moment.  But  this  time  we  have  an  incontest- 
able case  of  a  wrong  conclusion  from  a  wrong 
premiss.  First,  why  must  everything  which  has 
a  beginning  also  have  an  end  ?  The  observa- 
tions of  experience  point  to  such  an  hypothesis  ; 
but  are  the  observations  of  experience  really 
strong  enough  to  support  general  propositions  ? 
And  are  we  really  entitled  to  make  use  of  pro- 
positions so  acquired  as  first  principles  for  the 
solution  of  the  most  important  problems  of 
philosophy  ?  And  even  if  we  admit  that  the 
premiss  is  correct,  nevertheless  the  conclusion 
at  which  Schopenhauer  arrived  is  wrongly 
drawn.  It  may  indeed  be  that  everything 
which  has  a  beginning  also  has  an  end  ;  it  may 
indeed  be  that  the  individual  is  sooner  or  later 
doomed  to  perish  ;  but  why  identify  the  moment 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  99 

of  the  soul's  destruction  with  the  death  of  the 
body  ?  It  may  be  that  the  body  will  die,  but 
the  soul  which  the  same  fate  attends  at  some 
future  time  will  find  for  itself  a  more  or  less  suit- 
able integument  somewhere  in  a  distant  planet, 
perhaps  still  unknown  to  us,  and  Uve  on,  though 
only  for  a  little  while  and  not  for  all  eternity,  as 
the  extreme  optimists  believe.  How  important 
would  it  be  for  poor  humanity  to  retain  even 
such  a  hope  :  particularly  seeing  that  we  can 
hardly  say  with  certainty  what  it  is  that  men 
desire  when  they  speak  of  the  immortality  of  the 
soul.  Is  it  that  they  merely  desire  at  all  costs 
to  live  eternally,  or  would  they  be  satisfied  with 
one  or  two  lives  more,  especially  if  the  subse- 
quent lives  should  appear  to  be  less  offensively 
insignificant  than  this  earthly  existence,  wherein 
even  the  lowest  rank  of  nobility  is  to  many  an 
unattainable  ideal  ?  It  seems  to  me  that  it  is 
not  every  one  who  would  consent  to  live  eter- 
nally. And  what  if  every  possibility  should 
have  been  exhausted,  and  endless  repetition 
should  begin  ? 

It  does  not  of  course  follow  from  this  that  we 
have  the  right  to  reckon  upon  an  existence 
beyond  the  grave.  The  question  remains  open 
as  before,  even  when  Schopenhauer's  arguments 
have  been  refuted.  But  it  does  follow  that  the 
best  arguments  on  closer  consideration  often 
appear  worthless.  Quod  erat  demonst,  andum — 
naturally  pending  the  discovery  of  arguments 
to  refute  my  refutation  of  Schopenhauer's.     I 


100  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

make  this  reserve  to  deprive  my  critics  of  the 
pleasure  and  possibility  of  a  little  wordplay. 


VI 

Sivan  Songs 

It  cannot  be  doubted  that  When  We  Dead 
Awake  is  one  of  the  most  autobiographical  of 
Ibsen's  plays.  Nearly  all  his  dramas  reveal 
striking  traces  of  his  personal  experience  ;  their 
most  valuable  quality,  even,  is  the  possibility 
of  following  out  in  them  the  history  of  the 
author's  inward  struggle.  But  there  is  a  par- 
ticular significance  in  When  We  Dead  Awake , 
which  comes  from  the  fact  that  it  was  conceived 
and  written  by  the  author  in  his  old  age.  Those 
who  are  interested  in  overhearing  what  is  said 
and  watching  what  is  done  on  the  outskirts  of 
life  set  an  extraordinary  value  on  the  oppor- 
tunity of  communing  with  very  old  men,  with 
the  dying,  and  generally  with  men  who  are  placed 
in  exceptional  conditions,  above  all  when  they 
are  not  afraid  to  speak  the  truth,  and  have  by 
past  experience  developed  in  themselves  the 
art  and  the  courage — the  former  is  as  necessary 
as  the  latter — to  look  straight  into  the  eyes  of 
reality.  To  such  men  Ibsen  seems  even  more 
interesting  than  Tolstoi.  Tolstoi  indeed  has 
not  yet  betrayed  his  gift ;  but  he  is  primarily 
a  moralist.  Now,  as  in  his  youth,  power  over 
men  is  the  dearest  thing  of  all  to  him,  and  more 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  101 

fascinating  than  all  the  other  blessings  of  the 
world.  He  still  gives  orders,  makes  demands, 
and  desires  at  all  costs  to  be  obeyed.  One  may, 
and  one  ought,  to  consider  this  peculiarity  of 
Tolstoi's  nature  with  attention  and  respect. 
Not  Tolstoi  alone,  but  many  a  regal  hermit  of 
thought  has  to  the  end  of  his  life  demanded  the 
unconditional  surrender  of  mankind.  On  the 
day  of  his  death,  an  hour  before  end,  Socrates 
taught  that  there  was  only  one  truth  and  that  the 
one  which  he  had  discovered.  Plato  in  his  ex- 
treme old  age  journeyed  to  Syracuse  to  plant  the 
seeds  of  wisdom  there.  It  is  probable  that  such 
stubbornness  in  great  men  has  its  explanation 
and  its  deep  meaning. 

Tolstoi,  and  also  Socrates  and  Plato,  and  the 
Jewish  prophets,  who  in  this  respect  and  in  many 
others  were  very  like  the  teachers  of  wisdom, 
probably  had  to  concentrate  their  powers  wholly 
upon  one  gigantic  inward  task,  the  condition  of 
its  successful  performance  being  the  illusion  that 
the  whole  world,  the  whole  universe,  works  in 
concert  and  unison  with  them.  In  Tolstoi's  case 
I  have  elsewhere  shown  that  he  finds  himself  at 
present  on  the  brink  of  Solipsism  in  his  concep- 
tion of  the  world.  Tolstoi  and  the  whole  world 
are  to  him  synonymous.  Without  such  a  tem- 
porary delusion  of  his  whole  being — it  is  not  an 
intellectual  delusion,  of  the  head,  for  the  head 
knows  well  that  the  world  is  by  itself,  and  Tolstoi 
by  himself — he  would  have  to  give  up  his  most 
important  work.     So  it  is  with  us,  who  know 


102  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

since  Copernicus  that  the  earth  moves  round  the 
sun,  that  the  stars  are  not  clear,  bright,  golden 
rings,  but  huge  lumps  of  various  composition, 
that  there  is  not  a  firm  blue  vault  overhead.  We 
know  these  things  :  nevertheless  we  cannot  and 
do  not  want  to  be  so  blind  as  not  to  take  delight 
in  the  lie  of  the  optical  illusions  of  the  visible 
world.  Truth  so-called  has  but  a  limited  value. 
Nor  does  the  sacrifice  of  Galileo  by  any  means 
refute  my  words.  E  pur  si  muove,  if  ever  he 
uttered  the  phrase,  might  not  have  referred  to 
the  movement  of  the  earth,  though  it  was  spoken 
of  the  earth.  Galileo  did  not  wish  to  betray  the 
work  of  his  life.  Who  will,  however,  stand  surety 
to  us  that  not  only  Galileo  is  capable  of  such 
sacrifice,  but  his  pupil  also,  even  the  most  de- 
voted and  courageous,  who  has  gained  the  new 
truth  not  by  his  own  struggle  but  from  the  lips  of 
his  master.  Peter  in  one  night  thrice  denied 
Christ.  Probably  we  could  not  find  a  single  man 
in  all  the  world  who  would  consent  to  die  to 
demonstrate  and  defend  the  idea  of  Galileo. 
Evidently  great  men  are  very  little  inclined  to 
initiate  the  outsider  into  the  secret  of  their  great 
deeds.  Evidently  they  cannot  themselves  al- 
ways give  a  clear  account  of  the  character  and 
meaning  of  the  tasks  which  they  set  themselves. 
Socrates  himself,  who  all  his  life  long  so  stub- 
bornly sought  clarity  and  invented  dialectics  for 
the  purpose,  and  introduced  into  general  use 
definitions  designed  to  fix  the  flowing  reality  ; 
Socrates,  who  spent  thirty  days  without  inter- 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  103 

ruption  in  persuading  his  pupils  that  he  was 
dying  for  the  sake  of  truth  and  justice  ;  Socrates 
himself,  I  say,  perhaps,  most  probably  even, 
knew  as  little  why  he  was  dying  as  do  simple 
people  who  die  a  natural  death,  or  as  babes  born 
into  the  world  know  by  what  beneficent  or  hostile 
power  they  have  been  summoned  from  nonentity 
into  being.  Such  is  our  life  :  wise  men  and  fools, 
old  men  and  children  march  at  random  to  goals 
which  have  not  yet  been  revealed  by  any  books, 
whether  worldly  or  spiritual,  common  or  sacred. 
It  is  by  no  means  with  the  desire  to  bring  dogma- 
tism into  contempt  that  I  recall  these  considera- 
tions. I  have  always  been  convinced,  and  am 
still  certain,  that  dogmatists  feel  no  shame, 
and  are  by  no  means  to  be  driven  out  of  life ; 
besides,  I  have  lately  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  dogmatists  are  perfectly  justified  in  their 
stubbornness.  Belief,  and  the  need  of  belief,  are 
strong  as  love,  as  death.  In  the  case  of  every 
dogmatist  I  now  consider  it  my  sacred  duty  to 
concede  everything  in  advance,  even  to  the 
acknowledgment  of  the  least,  and  least  signifi- 
cant, shades  of  his  convictions  and  beliefs. 
There  is  but  one  limitation,  one  only,  impercep- 
tible and  almost  invisible  :  the  dogmatist's  con- 
victions must  not  be  absolutely  and  universally 
binding,  that  is,  not  binding  upon  the  whole  of 
mankind  without  exception.  The  majority, 
the  vast  majority,  millions,  even  tens  of  millions 
of  people,  I  will  readily  allow  him,  on  the  under- 
standing that  they  themselves  desire  it,  or  that 


104  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

he  will  show  himself  skilful  enough  to  entice 
them  to  his  side — violence  is  surely  not  to  be 
admitted  in  matters  of  belief.  In  a  word,  I 
allow  him  almost  the  whole  of  humankind,  in 
consideration  whereof  he  must  agree  that  his 
convictions  are  not  intrinsically  binding  upon 
the  few  units  or  tens  that  remain.  I  agree  to  an 
outward  submission.  And  the  dogmatist,  after 
such  a  victory — my  confession  is  surely  a  com- 
plete victory  for  him — must  consider  himself 
satisfied  in  full. 

Socrates  was  right,  Plato,  Tolstoi,  the  prophets 
were  right :  there  is  only  one  truth,  one  God  ; 
truth  has  the  right  to  destroy  lie,  light  to  destroy 
darkness.  God,  omniscient,  most  gracious  and 
omnipotent,  will  like  Alexander  of  Macedon 
conquer  nearly  all  the  known  world,  and  will 
drive  out  from  his  possessions,  amid  the  trium- 
phant and  delighted  shouts  of  his  millions  of 
loyal  subjects,  the  devil  and  all  those  who  are 
disobedient  to  his  divine  word.  But  he  will 
renounce  his  claim  to  power  over  the  souls  of 
his  few  opponents,  according  to  the  agreement, 
and  a  handful  of  apostates  will  gather  together 
on  a  remote  isle,  invisible  to  the  millions,  and 
will  there  continue  their  free,  peculiar  life.  And 
here — to  return  to  the  beginning — among  these 
few  disobedient  will  be  found  Ibsen  as  he  was  in 
the  last  years  of  his  life,  as  he  is  seen  in  his  last 
drama.  For  in  When  We  Dead  Awake  Ibsen 
approves  and  glorifies  that  which  Gogol  actually 
did  fifty  years  ago.     He  renounces  his  art,  and 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  105 

with  hatred  and  mockery  recalls  to  mind  what 
was  once  the  business  of  his  life.  On  April  15, 
1866,  Ibsen  wrote  to  King  Karl  :  '  I  am  not 
fighting  for  a  careless  existence  ;  I  am  fighting 
for  the  work  of  my  Ufe,  in  which  I  unflinchingly 
believe,  and  which  I  know  God  has  given  me  to 
do.'  By  the  way,  you  will  hardly  find  one  of  the 
great  workers  who  has  not  repeated  this  assertion 
of  Ibsen's,  whether  in  the  same  or  in  another 
form.  Evidently,  without  such  an  illusion, 
temporary  or  permanent,  one  cannot  compass 
the  intense  struggle  and  the  sacrifices  which  are 
the  price  of  great  work.  Evidently,  illusions  of 
various  kinds  are  necessary  even  for  success  in 
small  things.  In  order  that  a  little  man  should 
fulfil  his  microscopical  work,  he  too  must  strain 
his  little  forces  to  the  extreme.  And  who  knows 
whether  it  did  not  seem  to  Akaky  Akakievitch 
that  God  had  assigned  to  him  the  task  of  copying 
the  papers  in  the  office  and  having  a  new  uniform 
made  ?  Of  course  he  would  never  dare  to  say  so, 
and  he  would  never  be  able  to,  first  because  of  his 
timidity,  and  then  because  he  has  not  the  gift  of 
expression.  The  Muses  do  not  bring  their  tribute 
to  the  poor  and  weak  :  they  sing  only  Croesus 
and  Caesar.  But  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 
first  in  the  village  consider  themselves  as  plainly 
designated  by  fate  as  the  first  in  Rome.  Caisar 
felt  this,  and  not  mere  ambition  alone  spoke  in 
him  when  he  uttered  the  famous  phrase.  Men 
do  not  believe  in  themselves  and  always  yearn  to 
occupy  a  position  wherein  the  certainty,  whether 


106  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

justified  or  mistaken,  may  spring  up  within  them 
that  they  stand  in  the  sight  of  God.  But  with 
years  all  illusions  vanish,  and  among  them  the 
illusion  that  God  chooses  certain  men  for  his 
particular  purposes  and  puts  on  them  particular 
charges.  Gogol,  who  had  thus  long  understood 
his  task  as  an  author,  burnt  his  best  work  before 
his  death.  Ibsen  did  almost  the  same.  In  the 
person  of  Professor  Rubek  he  renounces  his 
literary  activity  and  jeers  at  it,  though  it  had 
brought  him  everything  that  he  could  have  ex- 
pected from  it,  fame,  respect,  riches.  .  .  .  And 
think  why  !  Because  he  had  to  sacrifice  the  man 
in  him  for  the  sake  of  the  artist,  to  give  up  Irene 
whom  he  loved,  to  marry  a  woman  to  whom  he 
was  indifferent.  Did  Ibsen  at  the  end  of  his  life 
clearly  discover  that  God  had  appointed  him  the 
task  of  being  a  male  ?  But  all  men  are  males, 
while  only  individuals  are  artists.  Had  this 
been  said,  not  by  Ibsen,  but  by  a  common  mortal, 
we  would  call  it  the  greatest  vulgarity.  On  the 
lips  of  Ibsen,  an  old  man  of  seventy  years,  the 
author  of  Brand,  from  which  the  divines  of 
Europe  draw  the  matter  for  their  sermons,  on  the 
lips  of  IbsenwhowYote Emperor andGalilean  such 
a  confession  acquires  an  unexpected  and  mys- 
terious meaning.  Here  you  cannot  escape  with 
a  shake  of  the  head  and  a  contemptuous  smile. 
Not  anybody,  but  Ibsen  himself  speaks — the  first, 
not  in  the  village,  not  in  Rome  even,  but  in  the 
world.  Here  surely  is  the  human  law  at  work  : 
'  Forswear  not  the  prison  nor  the  beggar's  wallet ! ' 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  107 

Perhaps  it  is  opportune  to  recall  the  swan 
songs  of  Turgeniev.     Turgeniev,  too,  had  high 
ideals  which  he  probably  thought  he  had  re- 
ceived direct  from  God.     We  may  with  assur- 
ance put  into  the  mouth  of  Brand  himself  the 
phrase  with  which  his  remarkable  essay,  Hamlet 
and  Don  Qwiiroie,  concludes  :  '  Everything  passes, 
good  deeds  remain.'     In  these  words  is  the  whole 
Turgeniev,  or  better,  the  whole  conscious  Tur- 
geniev of  that  period  of  his  life  to  which  the  essay 
belongs.     And  not  only  in  that  period,  but  up  to 
the  last  minutes  of  his  life,  the  conscious  Tur- 
geniev would  not  recant  those  words.     But  in  the 
Prose  Poems  an  utterly  different  motive  is  heard. 
All  that  he  there  relates,  and  all  that  Ibsen  tells 
in  his  last  drama,  is  permeated  with  one  infinite, 
inextinguishable  anguish  for  a  life  wasted  in 
vain,  for  a  life  which  had  been  spent  in  preaching 
'  good.'     Yet  neither  youth,  nor  health,  nor  the 
powers  that  fail  are  regretted.     Perhaps  even 
death    has    no    terrors.    .    .    .   What    the    old 
Turgeniev  cannot  away  with  are  his  memories 
of  '  the  Russian  girl.'    He  described  and  sang  her 
as  no  one  in  Russian  literature  before  him,  but 
she  was  to  him  only  an  ideal ;    he,  like  Rubek, 
had  not  touched  her.     Ibsen  had  not  touched 
Irene  ;    he  went  off  to  Madame  Viardo.     And 
this  is  an  awful  sin,  in  no  wise  to  be  atoned,  a 
mortal  sin,  the  sin  of  which  the  Bible  speaks. 
All  things  will  be  forgiven,  all  things  pass,  all 
things  will  be  forgotten  :  this  crime  will  remain 
for  ever.     That  is  the  meaning  of  Turgeniev's 


108  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

senilia ;  that  is  the  meaning  of  Ibsen's  senilia. 
I  have  deUberately  chosen  the  word  senilia, 
though  I  might  have  said  swan  songs,  though  it 
would  even  hav^e  been  more  correct  to  speak  of 
swan  songs.  '  Swans,'  says  Plato,  '  when  they 
feel  the  approach  of  death,  sing  that  day  better 
than  ever,  rejoicing  that  they  will  find  God, 
whom  they  serve.'  Ibsen  and  Turgeniev  served 
the  same  God  as  the  swans,  according  to  the 
Greek  belief,  the  bright  God  of  songs,  Apollo. 
And  their  last  songs,  their  senilia,  were  better 
than  all  that  had  gone  before.  In  them  is  a 
bottomless  depth  awful  to  the  eye,  but  how 
wonderful !  There  all  things  are  different  from 
what  they  are  with  us  on  the  surface.  Should 
one  hearken  to  the  temptation  and  go  to  the  call 
of  the  great  old  men,  or  should  he  tie  himself  to 
the  mast  of  conviction,  verified  by  the  experience 
of  mankind,  and  cover  his  ears  as  once  the  crafty 
Ulysses  did  to  save  himself  from  the  Syrens  ? 
There  is  a  way  of  escape  :  there  is  a  word  which 
will  destroy  the  enchantment.  I  have  already 
uttered  it :  senilia.  Turgeniev  wished  to  call 
his  Prose  Poems  by  this  name — manifestations 
of  sickness,  of  infirmity,  of  old  age.  These 
are  terrible ;  one  must  run  away  from  these  ! 
Schopenhauer,  the  philosopher  and  metaphysi- 
cian, feared  to  revise  the  works  of  his  youth  in  his 
old  age.  He  felt  that  he  would  spoil  them  by  his 
mere  touch.  And  all  men  mistrust  old  age,  all 
share  Schopenhauer's  apprehensions.  But  what 
if  all  are  mistaken  ?     What  if  senilia  bring  us 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  109 

nearer  to  the  truth  ?  Perhaps  the  soothsaying 
birds  of  Apollo  grieve  in  unearthly  anguish  for 
another  existence  ;  perhaps  their  fear  is  not  of 
death  but  of  life  ;  perhaps  in  Turgeniev's  poems, 
as  well  as  in  Ibsen's  last  drama,  are  already 
heard,  if  not  the  last,  then  at  least  the  penulti- 
mate words  of  mankind. 


VII 

What  is  Philosophy  ? 

In  text-books  of  philosophy  you  will  find 
most  diverse  answers  to  this  question.  During 
the  twenty-five  hundred  years  of  its  existence  it 
has  been  able  to  make  an  immense  quantity  of 
attempts  to  define  the  substance  of  its  task. 
But  up  till  now  no  agreement  has  been  reached 
between  the  acknowledged  representatives  of 
the  lovers  and  favourites  of  wisdom.  Every  one 
judges  in  his  own  way,  and  considers  his  opinion 
as  the  only  true  one ;  of  a  cotisensus  sapieniium 
it  is  impossible  even  to  dream.  But  strangely 
enough,  exactly  in  this  disputable  matter  wherein 
the  agreement  of  savants  and  sages  is  so  impos- 
sible, the  consensus  profanorum  is  fully  attained. 
All  those  who  were  never  engaged  in  philosophy, 
who  have  never  read  learned  books,  or  even  any 
books  at  all,  answer  the  question  with  rare  unani- 
mity. True,  it  is  apparently  impossible  to  judge 
of  their  opinions  directly,  because  people  of  this 
kind  cannot  speak  at  all  in  the  language  evolved 


110  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

by  science ;  they  never  put  the  question  in  such  a 
form,  still  less  can  they  answer  it  in  the  accepted 
words.  But  we  have  an  important  piece  of  in- 
direct evidence  which  gives  us  the  right  to  form 
a  conclusion.  There  is  no  doubt  that  all  those 
who  have  gone  to  philosophy  for  answers  to  the 
questions  which  tormented  them,  have  left  her 
disenchanted,  unless  they  had  a  sufficiently  emi- 
nent gift  to  enable  them  to  join  the  guild  of 
professional  philosophers.  From  this  we  may 
unhesitatingly  conclude,  although  the  conclusion 
is  for  the  time  being  only  negative,  that  philo- 
sophy is  engaged  in  a  business  which  may  be  in- 
teresting and  important  to  the  few,  but  is  tedious 
and  useless  to  the  many. 

This  conclusion  is  highly  consoling  as  well  for 
the  sage  as  for  the  profane.  For  every  sage,  even 
the  most  exalted,  is  at  the  same  time  one  of  the 
profane — if  we  discard  the  academical  use  of 
words — a  human  being,  pure  and  simple.  To 
him  also  it  may  happen  that  those  tormenting 
questions  will  arise,  which  ordinary  people  used 
to  bring  to  him,  as  for  instance  in  the  case  of 
Tolstoi's  Ivan  Ilyich  or  Tchekhov's  professor  in 
The  Tedious  Story.  And  then  he  will  of  course 
be  obliged  to  confess  that  the  necessary  answers 
are  missing  from  the  great  tomes  which  he  has 
studied  so  well.  For  what  can  be  more  terrible  to 
a  man  than  to  be  compelled  in  the  hard  moments 
of  his  life  to  acknowledge  any  doctrine  of  philo- 
sophy as  binding  upon  him  ?  For  instance,  to 
be  compelled  to  hold  with  Plato,  Spinoza,  or 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  111 

Schopenhauer  that  the  chief  problem  of  life  is 
moral  perfection,  or  in  other  words,  self-renuncia- 
tion. It  was  easy  for  Plato  to  preach  justice. 
It  did  not  in  the  least  prevent  him  from  being  the 
son  of  his  time,  or  from  breaking  to  a  permissible 
extent  the  commandments  which  he  himself  had 
given.  By  all  the  evidence  Spinoza  was  much 
more  resolute  and  consequent  than  Plato ;  he 
indeed  kept  the  passions  in  subservience,  but 
that  was  his  personal  and  individual  inclination. 
Consistence  was  not  merely  a  property  of  his 
mind,  but  of  his  whole  being.  Displaying  it,  he 
displayed  himself.  As  for  Schopenhauer,  it  is 
known  that  he  praised  the  virtues  only  in  his 
books  ;  but  in  life,  like  many  another  clever, 
independent  man,  he  was  guided  by  the  mos^ 
diverse  considerations,  ae 

But  these  are  all  masters,  who  devise  sy  es  of 
and  imperatives.     Whereas  the  pupil,  seeking^n 
philosophy  an  answer  to  his  questions,  caniii, 
permit  himself  any  liberties  and  digressions  from 
the  universal  rules,  for  the  essence  and  the  funda- 
mental problem  of  any  doctrine  reduces  to  the 
subordination  not  merely  of  men's  conduct,  but 
of  the  life  of  the  whole  universe  to  one  regulating 
principle.     Individual    philosophers    have    dis- 
covered such  principles,  but  to  this  day  they 
have  reached  no  final  agreement  among  them- 
selves, and  this  to  some    extent    lightens    the 
burden  of  those  unhappy  ones  who,  having  lost 
the  hope  of  finding  help  and  guidance  elsewhere, 
have  turned  to  philosophy.     If  there  is  not  in 


112  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

philosophy  one  universal  principle  binding  upon 
and  acknowledged  by  all,  it  means  that  it  is  per- 
mitted to  each  man,  at  least  for  the  meantime, 
to  feel  and  even  to  act  in  his  own  way.  A  man 
may  listen  to  Spinoza,  or  he  may  stop  his  ears. 
He  may  kneel  before  Plato's  eternal  ideas,  or  he 
may  give  his  allegiance  to  the  ever-changing, 
ever-flowing  reality.  Finally,  he  may  accept 
Schopenhauer's  pessimism,  but  nothing  on  earth 
can  compel  him  to  celibacy  on  the  ground  that 
Schopenhauer  successfully  laughed  at  love.  Nor 
is  there  any  necessity  at  all,  in  order  to  win  such 
freedom  for  one's  self,  to  be  armed  with  the  light 
dialectic  of  the  old  Greek  philosopher,  or  with  the 
heavy  logic  of  the  poor  Dutch  Jew,  or  with  the 
subtle  wit  of  the  profound  German.  Neither  is 
^"  necessary  to  dispute  them.  It  is  even  possible 
^  »*"  Tee  v/ith  them  all.  The  room  of  the  world 
'  iiinite,  and  will  not  only  contain  all  those  who 

P^°  j/'ed  once  and  those  who  are  yet  to  be  born,  but 
^  vvill  give  to  each  one  of  them  all  that  he  can 
desire  :  to  Plato,  the  world  of  ideas,  to  Spinoza, 
the  one  eternal  and  unchangeable  substance,  to 
Schopenhauer,  the  Nirvana  of  Buddhism.  Each 
of  these,  and  all  the  other  philosophers,  will  find 
what  they  want  in  the  universe  even  to  the 
belief,  even  to  the  conviction,  that  theirs  are  the 
only  true  and  universal  doctrines.  But,  at  the 
same  time,  the  profane  will  find  suitable  worlds 
for  themselves.  From  the  fact  that  people  are 
cooped  up  on  the  earth,  and  that  they  must  put 
forth  efforts  beyond  belief  to  gain  each  cubit  of 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  113 

earth,  and  even  their  illusory  liberties,  it  by  no 
means  follows  that  poverty,  obscurantism,  and 
despotism  must  be  considered  eternal  and 
original  principles,  and  that  economical  uni- 
formity is  the  last  refuge  of  man.  A  plurality 
of  worlds,  a  plurality  of  men  and  gods  amid  the 
vast  spaces  of  the  vast  universe — this  is,  if  I 
may  be  forgiven  the  word,  an  ideal.  It  is  true 
it  is  not  built  according  to  the  idealists.  Yet 
what  a  conclusion  does  it  foreshadow  !  We  leave 
the  disputes  and  arguments  of  philosophers  aside, 
so  soon  as  we  begin  to  speak  of  gods.  According 
to  the  existing  beliefs  and  hypotheses  the  gods 
also  have  always  been  quarrelling  and  fighting 
among  themselves.  Even  in  monotheistic  reli- 
gions people  always  made  their  God  enter  a  fight, 
and  devised  an  eminent  opponent  for  him — the 
devil.  Men  can  by  no  means  rid  themselves  of 
the  thought  that  everything  in  heaven  goes  on 
in  exactly  the  same  way  as  it  does  on  the  earth, 
and  they  attribute  all  their  own  bad  qualities  as 
well  as  their  good  ones  to  the  denizens  of  heaven. 
Whereas  it  is  by  far  the  most  probable  that  a 
great  many  of  the  things  which  are,  according 
to  our  notions,  perfectly  inseparable  from  life 
do  not  exist  in  heaven.  Among  other  things, 
there  is  no  struggle.  And  this  is  well.  For 
every  struggle,  sooner  or  later,  develops  inevit- 
ably into  a  fight.  When  the  supply  of  logical 
and  ethical  arguments  is  exhausted,  one  thing 
is  left  for  the  irreconcilable  opponents — to  come 
to  blows,  which  do  in  fact  usually  decide  the 

H 


114.  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

issue.  The  value  of  logical  and  ethical  argu- 
ments is  arbitrarily  assigned,  but  material  force 
is  measured  by  foot-pounds  and  can  be  calcu- 
lated in  advance.  So  that  where  on  the  common 
supposition  there  will  be  no  foot-pounds,  the 
issue  of  the  fight  will  very  often  remain  un- 
decided. When  Lermontov's  demon  goes  to 
Tamara's  cell,  an  angel  meets  him  on  the  way. 
The  demon  says  that  Tamara  belongs  to  him  ; 
the  angel  demands  her  for  himself.  The  demon 
will  not  be  dissuaded  by  words  and  arguments  : 
he  is  not  built  that  way.  As  for  the  angel,  he 
always  considers  himself  doubly  right.  How 
can  the  issue  be  decided  ?  At  last  Lermontov, 
who  could  not  or  dared  not  devise  a  new  solu- 
tion, admitted  the  interference  of  material  force  : 
Tamara  is  dragged  away  from  the  demon  exactly 
as  the  stronger  robber  pulls  his  prey  from  the 
weaker  on  earth.  Evidently  the  poet  admitted 
that  conclusion,  that  he  might  pay  his  tribute 
to  the  piety  of  tradition.  But  in  my  opinion  the 
solution  is  not  pious,  but  merely  blasphemous. 
In  it  the  traces  of  barbarity  and  idolatry  are 
still  clearly  visible.  The  tastes  and  attributes 
of  which  earthly  despots  dream  are  attributed 
to  God,  By  all  means  he  must  be,  he  desires  to 
be,  the  strongest,  the  very  first,  Just  like  Julius 
Caesar  in  his  youth.  He  fears  rivalry  above  all 
things,  and  never  forgives  his  unconquered 
enemies.  This  is  evidently  a  barbarous  mistake. 
God  does  not  want  to  be  the  strongest,  the  very 
first,  at  all.     Certainly — for  that  would  be  in- 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  115 

telligible  and  in  accordance  with  common  sense 
— he  would  not  like  to  be  weaker  than  others, 
in  order  that  he  might  not  be  exposed  to  violence; 
but  there  is  no  foundation  at  all  for  attributing 
to  him  ambition  or  vainglory.  Therefore  there 
is  equally  no  reason  to  think  that  he  does  not 
suffer  equals,  desires  to  be  supreme,  and  seeks 
at  all  costs  to  destroy  the  devil.  Most  probably 
he  lives  in  peace  and  concord  even  with  those 
who  least  adapt  themselves  to  his  tastes  and 
habits.  Perhaps  he  is  even  delighted  that  not 
all  are  as  he,  and  he  readily  shares  his  posses- 
sions with  the  devil,  the  more  readily  because 
by  such  a  division  neither  loses,  since  the  in- 
finite— I  admit  that  God's  possessions  are  in- 
finite— divided  by  two  and  even  by  the  greatest 
possible  finite  number  still  leaves  infinity. 

Now  we  can  return  to  the  original  question, 
and  it  seems  that  we  can  even  give  an  answer  to 
it — two  answers  even,  one  for  the  sage,  another 
for  the  profane.  To  the  first,  philosophy  is  art 
for  art's  sake.  Every  philosopher  tries  to  con- 
struct a  harmonious  and  various  system,  curi- 
ously and  nicely  fashioned,  using  for  his  material 
his  own  intrinsic  experience  as  well  as  his  own 
personal  observations  of  the  life  beyond  him,  and 
the  observations  of  others.  A  philosopher  is  an 
artist  of  his  kind,  to  whom  his  works  are  dearer 
than  everything  in  life,  sometimes  dearer  than 
life  itself.  We  very  often  see  philosophers  sacri- 
fice everything  for  the  sake  of  their  work — even 
truth.     Not  so  the  profane.     To  them  philo- 


116  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

sophy — more  exactly,  that  which  they  would 
call  philosophy  if  they  possessed  a  scientific 
terminology — is  the  last  refuge  when  material 
forces  have  been  wasted,  when  there  are  no 
weapons  left  to  fight  for  their  stolen  rights.  Then 
they  run  for  help  and  support  to  a  place  which 
they  have  always  taken  care  to  avoid  before. 
Think  of  Napoleon  at  St.  Helena.  He  who  had 
been  collecting  soldiers  and  guns  all  his  life, 
began  to  philosophise  when  he  was  bound  hand 
and  foot.  Certainly  he  behaved  in  this  new 
sphere  like  a  beginner,  a  very  inexperienced  and, 
strange  to  say,  a  pusillanimous  novice. 

He  who  feared  neither  pestilence  nor  bullet, 
was  afraid,  we  know,  of  a  dark  room.  Men  used 
to  philosophy,  like  Schopenhauer,  walk  boldly 
and  with  confidence  in  a  dark  room,  though  they 
run  away  from  gun  shots,  and  even  less  dan- 
gerous things.  The  great  captain,  the  once 
Emperor  of  nearly  all  Europe,  Napoleon,  philo- 
sophised on  St.  Helena,  and  even  went  so  far  as 
to  begin  to  ingratiate  himself  with  morality, 
evidently  supposing  that  upon  morality  his  ulti- 
mate fate  depended.  He  assured  her  that  for 
her  sake,  and  her  sake  alone,  he  had  contrived 
his  murderous  business — he  who,  all  the  while 
a  crown  was  on  his  head  and  a  victorious  army 
in  his  hands,  hardly  knew  even  of  the  existence 
of  morality.  But  this  is  so  intelligible.  If  one 
were  to  come  upon  a  perfectly  new  and  unknown 
world  at  the  age  of  forty-five,  then  surely  every- 
thing would  seem  terrible,  and  one  would  take 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  117 

the  incorporeal  morality  for  the  arbiter  of  destiny. 
And  one  would  plan  to  seduce  her,  if  possible, 
with  sweet  words  and  false  promises,  as  a  lady 
of  the  world.  But  these  were  the  first  steps  of 
a  tyro.  It  was  as  hard  for  Napoleon  to  master 
philosophy  as  it  was  for  Charlemagne  at  the 
end  of  his  days  to  learn  to  write.  But  he  knew 
why  he  had  come  to  the  new  place,  and  neither 
Plato  nor  Spinoza  nor  Kant  could  dissuade  him 
of  this.  Perhaps  at  the  beginning,  while  he  was 
as  yet  unused  to  the  darkness,  he  would  pretend 
to  agree  with  the  acknowledged  authorities, 
thinking  that  here  too,  just  as  there  where  he 
lived  before,  exalted  personages  do  not  tolerate 
opposition  ;  perhaps  he  would  lie  to  them  as  he 
lied  to  morality,  but  his  business  he  would  not 
forget.  He  came  to  philosophy  with  demands, 
and  would  not  rest  till  he  had  received  satisfac- 
tion. He  had  already  seen  how  a  Corsican  lieu- 
tenant had  become  a  French  Emperor.  Why 
should  not  the  beaten  Emperor  fight  his  last 
fight  ?  .  .  .  And  how  shall  he  be  reconciled  with 
self-renunciation  ?  Philosophy  will  surrender  : 
it  is  only  necessary  not  to  surrender  in  one's  self. 
So  does  a  Napoleon  come  to  philosophy,  and  so 
does  he  understand  her.  And  until  the  con- 
trary is  proven,  nothing  can  prevent  us  from 
thinking  that  the  Napoleons  are  right,  and  there- 
fore that  academical  philosophy  is  not  the  last 
nor  even  the  penultimate  word.  For,  perhaps, 
the  last  word  is  hidden  in  the  hearts  of  the 
tongue-tied,  but  bold,  persistent,  implacable  men. 


118  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

VIII 

Heinrich  Heine 

More  than  a  hundred  years  have  passed  since 
the  birth,  and  fifty  years  since  the  death,  of  this 
remarkable  man,  but  the  history  of  Hterature 
has  not  yet  finally  settled  accounts  with  him. 
Even  the  Germans,  perhaps  the  Germans  above 
all,  find  it  impossible  to  agree  upon  the  valua- 
tion of  his  gift.  Some  consider  him  a  genius, 
others  a  man  devoid  of  talent  and  insipid.  More- 
over, his  enemies  still  bring  as  much  passion  to 
their  attacks  upon  him  as  they  did  before,  as 
though  they  were  waging  war  upon  a  live 
opponent  in  place  of  a  dead  one.  They  hate 
him  for  the  same  things  which  made  his  contem- 
poraries hate  him.  We  know  that  it  was  prin- 
cipally for  his  insincerity  that  they  did  not  for- 
give him.  No  one  could  tell  when  he  was 
speaking  seriously  and  when  in  jest,  what  he 
loved  and  what  he  hated,  and  finally  it  was 
quite  impossible  to  determine  whether  or  not 
he  believed  in  God.  It  must  be  confessed  that 
the  Germans  were  right  in  many  of  their  accusa- 
tions. I  value  Heine  extremely  highly  ;  in  my 
opinion  he  is  one  of  the  greatest  German  poets ; 
and  yet  I  cannot  undertake  to  say  with  cer- 
tainty what  he  loved,  what  he  believed,  and 
often  I  cannot  tell  how  serious  he  is  in  uttering 
one  or  another  of  his  opinions.  Nevertheless  I 
find  it  impossible  to  detect  any  insincerity  in  his 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  119 

works.  On  the  contrary,  those  peculiarities  of 
his,  which  so  irritated  the  Germans,  are  in 
my  eyes  so  many  proofs  of  his  wonderful  and 
unique  sincerity.  I  think  that  if  the  Germans 
were  mistaken  and  misunderstood  Heine,  hyper- 
trophied  self-love  and  the  power  of  prejudice  is 
the  cause.  Heine's  usual  method  is  to  begin  to 
speak  with  perfect  seriousness,  and  to  end  with 
biting  raillery  and  sarcasm.  Critics  and  readers, 
who  generally  do  not  guess  at  the  outset  what 
awaits  them  in  the  event,  have  taken  the  un- 
expected laughter  to  their  own  account,  and 
have  been  deeply  offended.  Wounded  self-love 
never  forgives ;  and  the  Germans  could  not 
forgive  Heine  for  his  jests.  And  yet  Heine  but 
rarely  attacked  others  :  most  of  his  mockery  is 
directed  against  himself,  and  above  all  in  the 
work  of  his  last  creative  period,  of  the  years 
when  he  lived  in  the  Matrazengrab. 

With  us  in  Russia  many  were  offended  with 
Gogol,  believing  that  he  was  jeering  at  them. 
Later,  he  confessed  that  he  had  been  describing 
himself.  Nor  does  the  inconstancy  of  Heine's 
opinions  in  any  way  prove  him  insincere.  His 
intention  was  by  no  means  always  to  fling  at  the 
Philistines.  Indeed,  he  did  not  know  what  to 
believe  ;  he  changed  his  tastes  and  attachments, 
and  did  not  even  always  know  for  certain  what 
he  preferred  at  the  moment.  Of  course,  had  he 
wished,  he  might  have  pretended  to  be  conse- 
quent and  consistent.  Or,  had  he  been  less 
eagle-eyed,  he  might  with  the  vast  majority  of 


120  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

men  have  adopted  a  ceremonial  dress  once  for 
all,  he  might  have  professed  and  invariably 
preached  ideas  which  had  no  relation  to  his  real 
emotions  and  moods.  Many  people  think  that 
one  ought  to  act  thus,  that  (particularly  in 
literature)  one  must  speak  only  officially  and 
exhibit  lofty  ideas  that  have  been  proclaimed 
by  wise  men  since  time  immemorial,  without 
their  having  made  the  least  inquiry  whether 
they  correspond  to  their  own  natures  or  not. 
Often  cruel,  vindictive,  spiteful,  selfish,  mean 
people  sincerely  praise  goodness,  forgiveness, 
love  to  one's  enemy,  generosity  and  magnanimity 
in  their  books,  while  of  their  tastes  and  passions 
they  speak  not  a  single  word.  They  are  con- 
fident that  passions  exist  only  to  be  suppressed, 
and  that  convictions  only  are  to  be  exhibited  or 
displayed.  A  man  rarely  succeeds  in  suppress- 
ing his  passions,  but  it  is  extremely  easy  to 
hide  them,  especially  in  books.  And  such  dis- 
simulation is  not  only  not  condemned,  but  re- 
cognised and  even  encouraged.  The  common 
and  familiar  programme  is  accepted  :  in  life 
'  passions  '  judge  '  convictions,'  in  books  '  con- 
victions,' or  '  ideals,'  as  they  are  called,  pass 
sentence  upon  '  passions.'  I  would  emphasise 
the  fact  that  most  writers  are  convinced  that 
their  business  is  not  to  tell  of  themselves,  but 
to  praise  ideals.  Heine's  sincerity  was  really 
of  a  different  order.  He  told  everything,  or 
nearly  everything,  of  himself.  And  this  was 
thought  so  shocking  that  the  sworn  custodians 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  121 

of  convention  and  good  morals  considered  them- 
selves wounded  in  their  best  and  loftiest  feelings. 
It  seemed  to  them  that  it  would  be  disastrous 
if  Heine  were  to  succeed  in  acquiring  a  great 
literary  influence,  and  in  getting  a  hold  upon 
the  minds  of  his  contemporaries.  Then  would 
crumble  the  foundations,  constructed  through 
centuries  of  arduous  labour  by  the  united 
efforts  of  the  most  distinguished  representatives 
of  the  nation.  This  is  perhaps  true  :  the  lofty 
magnificence  of  life  can  be  preserved  only  upon 
the  indispensable  condition  of  hypocrisy.  In 
order  that  it  should  be  beautiful,  much  must 
be  hidden  and  thrust  away  as  far  and  deep 
as  possible.  The  sick  and  the  mad  must  be 
herded  into  hospitals ;  poverty  into  cellars ; 
disobedient  passions  into  the  depths  of  the  soul. 
Truth  and  freedom  are  only  allowed  to  obtrude 
upon  the  attention  as  far  as  is  compatible  with 
the  interests  of  a  life  well  arranged  within  and 
without.  The  Protestant  Church  understood  this 
as  well  as  the  Catholic,  perhaps  better.  Strict 
Puritanism  elevated  spiritual  discipline  to  the 
highest  moral  law,  which  ruled  life  with  unre- 
lenting and  inexorable  despotism.  Marriage  and 
the  family,  not  love,  must  be  the  aim  of  man ;  and 
poor  Gretchen,  who  gave  herself  to  Faust  without 
observing  the  established  ceremonial,  was  forced 
to  consider  herself  eternally  damned.  The  in- 
ward discipline  still  more  than  the  outward 
guarded  the  foundations  and  gave  strength  and 
force  to  the  State  as  well  as  to  the  people.     Men 


122  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

and  women  were  not  spared ;  they  were  not 
even  taken  into  account.  Hundreds  and  thou- 
sands of  Gretchens,  men  and  women,  were  sacri- 
ficed, and  are  being  sacrificed  still,  without  pity 
to  '  the  highest  spiritual  interests.' 

Acknowledgment  and  respect  for  the  pre- 
scribed order  had  become  so  deeply  rooted  in  the 
German  soul — I  speak  of  Germany,  because  no 
other  nation  upon  earth  is  so  highly  disciplined — 
that  even  the  most  independent  characters 
yielded  to  it.  The  most  dreadful  sin  is  not  the 
breaking  of  the  law — a  violation  which  like 
Gretchen's  can  be  explained  by  weakness  and 
weakness  alone,  though  it  was  not  forgiven,  was 
less  severely  condemned — but  rebellion  against 
the  law,  the  open  and  daring  refusal  to  obey,  even 
though  it  be  expressed  in  the  most  insignificant 
act.  Therefore  every  one  tends  to  show  his 
loyalty  from  that  side  first  of  all.  In  a  greater  or 
less  degree  all  have  transgressed  the  law,  but  the 
more  one  has  violated  it  in  act,  the  more  impera- 
tive he  considers  its  glorification  in  words.  And 
this  order  of  things  aroused  neither  suspicion  nor 
discontent.  Therein  could  be  seen  acknowledged 
the  superiority  of  spirit  over  body,  of  mind  over 
passion.  Nobody  ever  asked  the  question  :  '  Is 
it  really  true  that  the  spirit  must  have  the 
mastery  over  the  body,  and  the  mind  over  the 
passions  ?  '  And  when  Heine  allowed  himself  to 
put  the  question  and  to  answer  it  in  his  own  way, 
the  whole  force  of  German  indignation  burst  upon 
him.     First  of  all  they  suspected  his  sincerity 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  128 

and  truthfulness.  '  It  is  impossible,'  said  the 
pious,  '  that  he  really  should  not  acknowledge 
the  law.  He  is  only  pretending.'  Such  a  sup- 
position was  the  more  natural  because  the  ring  of 
conviction  was  not  always  to  be  heard  in  Heine's 
tone  :  one  of  his  poems  ends  with  the  following 
words  :  *  I  seek  the  body,  the  body,  the  young 
and  tender  body.  The  soul  you  may  bury  deep 
in  the  ground — I  myself  have  soul  enough.' 
The  poem  is  daring  and  provocative  in  the  ex- 
treme, but  in  it,  as  in  all  Heine's  daring  and  pro- 
vocative poems,  may  be  heard  a  sharp  and  ner- 
vous laugh,  which  must  be  understood  as  the 
expression  of  the  divided  soul,  as  a  mockery  of 
himself.  It  is  he  who  tells  of  his  meeting  with 
two  women,  mother  and  daughter.  Both  please 
him  :  the  mother  by  her  much  knowledge,  the 
daughter  by  her  innocence.  And  the  poet 
stands  between  them,  in  his  own  words,  like 
Buridan's  ass  between  two  bundles  of  hay. 
Again,  daring,  again,  the  laugh  ;  and  again  the 
well-balanced  German  is  irritated.  He  would 
prefer  that  no  one  should  ever  speak  of  such 
emotions,  and  if  they  are  to  be  spoken  of,  then  it 
must  be  at  least  in  a  penitent  tone,  with  self- 
accusation.  But  Heine's  misplaced  laughter  is 
indecent  and  quite  uselessly  disconcerting.  I 
repeat  that  Heine  himself  was  not  always  sure 
that  his  '  sincerity  '  was  lawful.  While  he  was 
still  a  youth  he  told  how  there  suddenly  ran 
through  his  soul,  as  through  the  whole  earth,  a 
rent  which  split  asunder  the  unity  of  his  former 


124  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

emotions.  King  David  when  he  praised  God 
and  good  did  not  remember  his  dark  deeds — of 
which  there  were  not  a  few — or,  if  he  did  re- 
member them,  it  was  only  to  repent.  His  soul 
was  also  divided,  but  he  was  able  to  preserve  a 
sequence.  When  he  wept,  he  could  not  and  did 
not  want  to  rejoice ;  when  he  repented,  he  was 
already  far  from  sin  ;  when  he  prayed,  he  did  not 
scoff ;  when  he  believed,  he  did  not  doubt.  The 
Germans,  brought  up  on  the  great  king's  psalms, 
had  come  to  think  that  these  things  were  impos- 
sible and  ought  never  to  be  possible.  They  ad- 
mitted the  succession  of  different,  and  even  con- 
tradictory spiritual  conditions,  but  their  simul- 
taneous existence  appeared  to  them  unintelligible 
and  disgusting,  in  contradiction  with  divine 
commandments  and  the  laws  of  logic.  It  seemed 
to  them  that  everything  which  formerly  existed 
as  separate,  had  become  confused,  that  the  place 
of  stringent  harmony  had  been  usurped  by  ab- 
surdity and  chaos.  They  thought  that  such  a 
state  of  things  threatened  innumerable  miseries. 
They  did  not  admit  the  idea  that  Heine  himself 
might  not  understand  it ;  in  his  creation  they 
saw  the  manifestation  of  a  false  and  evil  will,  and 
they  invoked  divine  and  human  judgment  upon 
it.  The  Philistine  irritation  reached  the  extreme 
when  it  became  clear  that  Heine  had  not  humbled 
himself  even  before  the  face  of  death.  Stricken 
by  paralysis,  he  lay  in  his  Matrazengrab,  unable 
to  stir  a  limb ;  he  suffered  the  most  intense 
bodily  pains,  with  no  hope  of  cure,  or  even  of 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  125 

relief,  yet  he  still  continued  to  blaspheme  as  be- 
fore. Worse  still,  his  sarcasms  every  day  became 
more  ruthless,  more  poisonous,  more  refined. 
It  might  have  been  thought  that  it  was  left  to 
him,  crushed  and  destroyed,  only  to  acknowledge 
his  defeat  and  to  commit  himself  utterly  to  the 
magnanimity  of  the  victor.  But  in  the  weak 
flesh  a  strong  spirit  lived.  All  his  thoughts  were 
turned  to  God,  the  power  of  whose  right  hand, 
like  every  dying  man,  he  could  not  but  feel  upon 
him.  But  his  thoughts  of  God,  his  attitude  to 
God,  were  so  original  that  the  serious  people  of 
the  outer  world  could  only  shrug  their  shoulders. 
No  one  ever  spoke  thus  to  God,  either  aloud  or  to 
himself.  The  thought  of  death  usually  inspires 
mortals  with  fear  or  admiration  ;  therefore  they 
either  kneel  before  him  and  implore  forgiveness 
or  sing  his  praises.  Heine  has  neither  prayer  nor 
praise.  His  poems  are  permeated  with  a  charm- 
ing and  gracious  cynicism,  peculiar  and  proper  to 
himself  alone.  He  does  not  want  to  confess  his 
sins,  and  even  now  on  the  threshold  of  another 
life  he  remains  as  he  was  in  youth.  He  desires 
neither  paradise,  nor  bliss,  nor  heaven  ;  he  asks 
God  to  give  him  back  his  health,  and  to  put  his 
money  affairs  in  order.  '  I  know  there  is  much 
evil  and  many  vices  on  earth.  But  I  have  grown 
used  to  all  that  now,  and  besides  I  seldom  leave 
my  room.  O  God,  leave  me  here,  but  heal  my 
infirmities,  and  spare  me  from  want,'  he  writes 
in  one  of  his  last  poems.  He  derides  the  legends 
of  the  blissful  life  of  sinless  souls  in  oaradise. 


126  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

'  Sitting  on  the  clouds  and  singing  psalms  is  a 
pastime  quite  unsuited  to  me.'  He  remembers 
the  beautiful  Venus  of  the  Louvre  and  praises 
her  as  in  the  days  of  youth.  His  poem,  Das 
Hohelied,  is  a  mixture  of  extreme  cynicism, 
nobility,  despair,  and  incredible  sarcasm.  I  do 
not  know  whether  dying  men  have  had  such 
thoughts  as  those  which  are  expressed  in  this 
poem,  but  I  am  confident  that  no  one  has  ex- 
pressed anything  like  them  in  literature.  In 
Goethe's  Prometheus  there  is  nothing  of  the 
provocative,  unshakable,  calm  pride  and  the 
consciousness  of  his  rights  which  inspired  the 
author  of  Das  Hohelied.  God,  who  created 
heaven  and  earth  and  man  upon  the  earth,  is  free 
to  torment  my  body  and  soul  to  his  fill,  but  I 
myself  know  what  I  need  and  desire,  I  myself 
decide  what  is  good  and  what  is  bad.  That  is 
the  meaning  of  this  poem,  and  of  all  that  Heine 
wrote  in  the  last  years  of  his  life.  He  knew  as 
well  as  any  one  that  according  to  the  doctrines  of 
philosophy,  ethics,  and  religion,  repentance  and 
humility  are  the  condition  of  the  soul's  salvation, 
the  readiness  even  with  the  last  breath  of  life 
to  renounce  sinful  desires.  Nevertheless,  with 
his  last  breath  he  does  not  want  to  own  the 
power  over  himself  of  the  age-old  authorities  of 
the  world.  He  laughs  at  morality,  at  philosophy, 
and  at  existing  religions.  The  wise  men  think 
so,  the  wise  men  want  to  live  in  their  own  way  ; 
let  them  think,  let  them  live.  But  who  gave 
them  the  right  to  demand  obedience  from  me  ? 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  127 

Can  they  have  the  power  to  compel  me  to  obedi- 
ence ?  Listening  to  the  words  of  the  dying  man, 
shall  we  not  repeat  his  question  ?  Shall  we  not 
take  one  step  further  ?  Heine  is  crushed,  and  if 
we  may  believe,  as  we  have  every  reason  to  be- 
lieve what  he  tells  us  in  his  '  Song  of  Songs,'  his 
painful  and  terrible  illness  was  the  direct  effect 
and  consequence  of  his  manner  of  life.  Does  it 
mean  that  in  the  future,  too  (if  future  there  is), 
new  persecutions  await  him,  until  the  day  when 
of  his  own  accord  he  will  subscribe  to  the  pro- 
claimed and  established  morality  ?  Have  we  the 
right  to  suppose  that  there  are  powers  somewhere 
in  the  universe  preoccupied  with  the  business  of 
cutting  out  all  men,  even  down  to  the  last,  after 
the  same  pattern  ?  Perhaps  Heine's  contumacy 
points  to  quite  a  different  intention  of  the  arbiters 
of  destiny.  Perhaps  the  illness  and  torture 
prepared  for  those  who  fight  against  collars  and 
blinkers — experience  demonstrates  with  suffi- 
cient certainty  that  any  declination  from  the 
high  road  and  the  norm  inevitably  brings  suffer- 
ing and  ruin  in  its  train — are  only  the  trial  of  the 
human  spirit.  Who  will  endure  them,  who  will 
stand  up  for  himself,  afraid  neither  of  God  nor  of 
the  devil  and  his  ministers,  he  will  enter  vic- 
toriously into  another  world.  Sometimes  I  even 
think,  in  opposition  to  existing  opinion,  that  there 
the  stubborn  and  inflexible  are  valued  above 
all  others,  and  that  the  secret  is  hidden  from 
mortals  lest  the  weak  and  compliant  should  take 
it  into  their  heads  to  pretend  to  be  stubborn,  in 


128  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

order  to  deserve  the  favour  of  the  gods.  But  he 
who  will  not  endure,  but  will  deny  himself,  may 
expect  the  fate  of  which  philosophers  and  meta- 
physicians generally  dream.  He  will  be  united 
with  the  primum  mobile,  he  will  be  dissolved  in 
the  essence  of  being  together  with  the  mass  of 
individuals  like  himself.  I  am  tempted  to  think 
that  the  metaphysical  theories  which  preach  self- 
renunciation  for  the  sake  of  love,  and  love  for  the 
sake  of  self-renunciation,  are  by  no  means  empty 
and  idle,  as  the  positivists  affirm.  In  them  lies 
a  deep,  mysterious,  and  mystical  meaning :  in 
them  is  hidden  a  great  truth.  Their  only  mis- 
take is  that  they  pretend  to  be  absolute.  For 
some  reason  or  other  men  have  decided  that 
empirical  truths  are  many,  but  that  metaphysical 
truth  is  one.  Metaphysical  truths  are  also  many, 
but  that  does  not  in  the  least  prevent  them  from 
living  in  harmony  one  with  another.  Empirical 
truths  like  all  earthly  beings  are  continually 
quarrelling,  and  cannot  get  on  without  superior 
authority.  But  metaphysical  truths  are  differ- 
ently arranged  and  know  nothing  whatsoever  of 
our  rivalry.  There  is  no  doubt  that  people  who 
feel  the  burden  of  their  individuality  and  thirst 
for  self-renunciation  are  absolutely  right.  Every 
probability  points  to  their  at  last  attaining  their 
purpose  and  being  united  to  that  to  which  they 
should  be  united,  whether  neighbour  or  remote, 
or  perhaps,  as  the  pantheists  desire,  even  to  in- 
animate nature.  But  it  is  just  as  probable  that 
those  who  value  their  individuality  and  do  not 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  129 

consent  to  renounce  it  either  for  the  sake  of  their 
neighbours  or  of  a  lofty  idea,  will  preserve  them- 
selves and  will  remain  themselves,  if  not  for  ever 
and  ever,  at  least  for  a  sufficiently  long  while, 
until  they  are  weary.  Therefore  the  Germans 
must  not  be  cross  with  Heine,  at  least  those  Ger- 
mans who  have  judged  him  not  from  the  utili- 
tarian point  of  view — from  this  point  of  view  I 
too  utterly  condemn  him,  and  find  for  him  no 
justification  at  all — but  from  the  lofty,  religious 
or  metaphysical  point  of  view,  as  it  is  called  nowa- 
days. He  cannot  possibly  disturb  them  in  any 
way.  They  will  be  united,  down  to  the  last  they 
probably  will  be  united  in  the  Idea,  the  thing  in 
itself,  in  Substance,  or  any  other  alluring  unity  ; 
and  not  Heine  with  his  sarcasms  will  keep  them 
from  their  lofty  aspirations.  While  if  he  and 
those  like  him  continue  to  live  in  their  own  way 
in  a  place  apart  and  even  laugh  at  ideas — can 
that  really  be  the  occasion  of  serious  annoyance  ? 

IX 

What  is  Truth  ? 

The  sceptics  assert  that  truth  does  not  and 
cannot  exist,  and  the  assertion  has  eaten  so  deep 
into  the  modern  mind,  that  the  only  philosophy 
which  has  spread  in  our  day  is  that  ot  Kant, 
which  takes  scepticism  for  its  point  of  departure. 
But  read  the  preface  to  the  first  edition  of  The 
Critique  of  Pure  Reason  attentively,  and  you  will 


180  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

be  convinced  that  he  had  absolutely  no  concern 
with  the  question  :  '  What  is  truth  ?  '     He  only 
set  himself  to  solve  the  problem,  what  should  a 
man  do  who  had  been  convinced  of  the  impossi- 
bility of  finding  the  objective  truth.     The  old 
metaphysic  with  its   arbitrary   and    unproven 
assertions,    which    could    not    bear    criticism, 
irritated  Kant,  and  he  decided  to  get  rid,  even 
though  by  accepting  the  relative  legitimacy  of 
scepticism,  of  the  unscientific  discipline  which  he, 
as  a  teacher  of  philosophy,  had  to  represent. 
But  the  confidence  of  the  sceptics  and  Kant's 
deference  are  not  in  the  least  binding  upon  us. 
And  after  all  Kant  himself  did  not  fulfil  the  obli- 
gations which  he  undertook.     For  if  we  do  not 
know  what  is  truth,  what  value  have  the  postu- 
lates of  the  existence  of  God  and  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  ?     How  can  we  justify  or  explain  any 
one  of  the   existing  religions,  Christianity  in- 
cluded ?     Although  the  Gospel  does  not  at  all 
agree  with  our  scientific  notions  of  the  laws  of, 
nature,  yet  it  does  not  in  itself  contain  anything 
contrary  to  reason.     We  do  not  disbelieve  in 
miracles  because  they  are  impossible.     On  the 
contrary,  it  is  as  clear  as  day  to  the  most  ordinary 
common  sense  that  life  itself,  the  foundation  of 
the  world,  is  the  miracle  of  miracles.     And  if  the 
task  of  philosophy  had  reduced  to  the  mere 
demonstration  of  the  possibility  of  a  miracle, 
her  business  would  have  been  splendidly  accom- 
plished long  ago.     The  whole  trouble  is  that 
visible  miracles  are  not  enough  for  people,  and 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  131 

that  it  is  impossible  to  deduce  from  the  fact  that 
many  miracles  have  already  taken  place  that 
other  miracles,  without  which  mere  existence  is 
often  impossible,  will  also  happen  in  due  course. 
Men  are  being  born — without  doubt  a  great 
miracle  ;  there  exists  a  beautiful  world — also  a 
miracle  of  miracles.  But  does  it  follow  that  men 
will  rise  from  the  grave,  and  that  paradise  is 
made  ready  for  them  ?  The  raising  of  Lazarus 
is  not  much  believed  nowadays  even  by  those 
who  revere  the  Gospel,  not  because  they  will  not 
admit  the  possibility  of  miracles  in  general,  but 
because  they  cannot  decide  a  priori  which 
miracles  are  possible  and  which  are  not,  and 
therefore  they  are  obliged  to  judge  a  posteriori. 
They  readily  accept  a  miracle  that  has  happened, 
but  they  doubt  the  miracle  that  has  not  hap- 
pened, and  the  more  they  doubt,  the  more  passion- 
ately do  they  desire  it.  It  costs  nothing  to  be- 
lieve in  the  final  triumph  of  good  upon  the  earth 
(though  it  would  be  an  absolute  miracle),  in 
progress  or  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope  (these 
too  are  miracles  and  by  no  means  inconsiderable), 
for  after  all  men  are  quite  sufficiently  indifferent 
to  good,  to  progress,  and  to  the  virtues  of  the 
Pope.  It  is  much  harder,  nay  quite  impossible, 
standing  before  the  dead  body  of  one  who  is  near 
and  dear,  to  believe  that  an  angel  will  fly  down 
from  heaven  and  bring  the  dead  to  life  again, 
although  the  world  is  full  of  happenings  no  less 
miraculous  than  the  raising  of  the  dead. 

Therefore  the  sceptics  are  wrong  when  they 


132  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

assert  that  there  is  no  truth.  Truth  exists,  but 
we  do  not  know  it  in  all  its  volume,  nor  can  we 
formulate  that  which  we  do  know  :  we  cannot 
imagine  why  it  happened  thus  and  not  otherwise, 
or  whether  that  which  happened  had  to  happen 
thus,  or  whether  something  else  quite  different 
might  have  happened.  Once  it  was  held  that 
reality  obeys  the  laws  of  necessity,  but  Hume 
explained  that  the  notion  of  necessity  is  sub- 
jective, and  therefore  must  be  discarded  as 
illusory.  His  idea  was  caught  up  (without  the 
deduction)  by  Kant.  All  those  of  our  judg- 
ments which  have  the  character  of  universality 
and  necessity,  acquire  it  only  by  virtue  of  our 
psychological  organisation.  In  those  cases  where 
we  are  particularly  convinced  of  the  objective 
value  of  our  judgment,  we  have  merely  to  do 
with  a  purely  subjective  certainty,  though  it  is 
immutable  and  secure  in  the  visible  world.  It 
is  well  known  that  Kant  did  not  accept  Hume's 
deduction  :  not  only  did  he  make  no  attempt 
to  banish  the  false  premisses  from  our  intel- 
lectual economy,  as  Hume  did  with  the  concep- 
tion of  necessity,  but,  on  the  contrary,  he  declared 
that  such  an  attempt  was  quite  impracticable. 
The  practical  reason  suggested  to  Kant  that 
though  the  foundations  of  our  judgments  are 
vitiated  by  their  source,  yet  their  invariability 
may  be  of  great  assistance  in  the  world  of  pheno- 
mena, that  is  in  the  space  between  the  birth  and 
death  of  man.  If  a  man  has  lived  before  birth 
(as  Plato  held),  and  will  live  after  death,  then 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  133 

his  '  truths  '  were  not,  and  will  not  be  necessary 
there,  in  the  other  world.  What  truths  are 
there,  and  whether  there  are  any  truths  at  all, 
Ka.it  only  guesses,  and  he  succ  eds  in  his  guesses 
only  because  of  his  readiness  to  ignore  logic  in 
his  conclusions.  He  suddenly  gives  faith  an 
immense  right  to  judge  of  the  real  world,  a  right 
of  which  faith  would  never  dream  had  it  not 
been  taken  under  his  special  patronage  by  the 
philosopher  himself.  But  why  can  faith  do 
that  which  reason  cannot  ?  And  a  yet  more 
insidious  question  :  Are  not  all  postulates  in- 
vented by  the  same  mind  which  was  deprived 
of  its  rights  in  the  first  Critique,  but  which  sub- 
sequently obtained  a  verdict  of  restitutio  in  in- 
tegrum, by  changing  the  name  of  the  firm  ?  The 
last  hypothesis  is  the  most  probable.  And  if  so, 
then  does  it  not  follow  that  in  the  real  world  so 
carefully  divided  by  Kant  from  the  world  of 
phenomena  we  will  find  much  that  is  new,  but 
not  a  little  that  is  old. 

In  general  it  is  clear  that  the  assumption  that 
our  world  is  a  world  of  an  instant,  a  brief  dream, 
utterly  unlike  real  life,  is  mistaken.  This 
assumption,  first  enunciated  by  Plato,  and  after- 
wards elaborated  and  maintained  by  many  re- 
presentatives of  religious  and  philosophical 
thought,  is  based  upon  no  data  at  all.  There 's 
no  denying,  it  is  very  pleasant.  But  as  often 
happens,  as  soon  as  the  wish  was  invested  with 
language,  by  the  mere  fact  it  received  too  sharp 
and  angular  an  expression,  so  that  it  lost  all 


184  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

resemblance  to  itself.  The  essence  of  the  true, 
primordial  life  beyond  the  grave  appears  to  Plato 
as  absolute  good  refined  from  all  alloy,  as  the 
essence  of  virtue.  But  after  all  Plato  himself 
cannot  suffer  the  absolute  emptiness  of  the  ideal 
existence,  and  constantly  flavours  it  with 
elements  which  are  by  no  means  ideal,  but  which 
give  interest  and  intensity  to  his  dialogues.  If 
you  have  never  had  the  occasion  to  read  Plato 
himself,  acquaint  yourself  with  his  philosophy 
through  the  teaching  of  any  of  his  admirers  and 
appreciators,  and  you  will  be  struck  by  its  empti- 
ness. Read  the  thick  volume  of  Natorp's  well- 
known  work,  and  you  will  see  what  value  there 
is  in  Plato's  '  purified  '  doctrine.  And  in  pass- 
ing I  would  recommend  as  a  general  rule,  this 
method  of  examining  the  ideas  of  famous  phil- 
osophers, by  acquainting  oneself  with  them  not 
onlj^  in  the  original  works,  but  in  the  exposi- 
tions of  their  disciples,  particularly  of  faithful 
and  conscientious  disciples.  When  the  fascina- 
tion of  the  personality  and  the  genius  disappears 
and  the  naked,  unadorned  '  truth '  remains — 
disciples  always  believe  that  the  master  had 
the  truth,  and  they  reveal  it  without  any  em- 
bellishment or  fig  leaf  —  only  then  does  it 
become  quite  clear  of  how  little  value  are  the 
fundamental  thoughts  of  even  the  most  exalted 
philosophers.  Still  more  obvious  does  it  become 
when  the  faithful  disciple  begins  to  draw  con- 
clusions from  his  master's  proportions.  The 
book  of  the  aforesaid  Natorp,  a  great  Plato 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  185 

expert,  is  a  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  all  his 
master's  ideas.  Plato  is  revealed  as  a  logical 
Neo-Kantian,  a  narrow-minded  savant,  who  had 
been  put  thoroughly  through  the  mill  at  Freiburg 
or  Heidelberg.  It  is  also  revealed  that  Plato's 
ideas,  in  the  pure  state,  do  not  in  the  least  express 
his  real  attitude  to  life  and  to  the  world.  One 
must  take  the  whole  Plato  with  his  contradic- 
tions and  inconsequence,  with  his  vices  and 
virtues,  and  value  his  defects  at  least  as  much  as 
his  qualities,  or  even  add  one  or  two  defects, 
and  be  blind  to  one  or  two  virtues.  For  it  is 
probable  that  he,  as  a  man  to  whom  nothing 
human  was  alien,  tried  to  assume  a  few  virtues 
which  he  did  not  possess,  and  to  conceal  a  few 
failings.  This  course  should  be  followed  with 
other  masters  of  wisdom  and  their  doctrines. 
Then  '  the  other  world  '  will  not  appear  to  be 
separated  by  such  an  abyss  from  our  earthly 
vale.  And  perhaps,  in  spite  of  Kant,  some 
empirical  truths  will  be  found  common  to  both 
worlds.  Then  Pilate's  question  will  lose  much 
of  its  all-conquering  certainty.  He  washed  to 
wash  his  hands  of  the  business,  and  he  asked, 
'  What  is  truth  ?  '  After  him  and  before  him, 
many  who  had  no  desire  to  struggle  have  devised 
ingenious  questions  and  taken  their  stand  upon 
scepticism.  But  every  one  knows  that  truth 
does  exist,  and  sometimes  can  even  formulate  its 
own  conception  with  the  clarity  and  precision 
demanded  by  Descartes.  Is  the  miraculous 
bounded  by  the  miracles  that  have  already  been 


136  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

seen  on  earth,  or  are  its  limits  set  much  wider  ? 
And  if  wider,  then  how  much  ? 


X 

More  of  Truth 

Perhaps  truth  is  by  nature  such  that  its  com- 
munication between  men  is  impossible,  at  least 
the  usual  communication  by  means  of  language. 
Every  one  may  know  it  in  himself,  but  in  order 
to  enter  into  communication  with  his  neighbour 
he  must  renounce  the  truth  and  accept  some 
conventional  he.  Nevertheless  the  value  and 
importance  of  truth  is  by  no  means  lessened  by 
the  fact  that  it  cannot  be  given  a  market  valua- 
tion. If  you  were  asked  what  is  truth,  you 
could  not  answer  the  question  even  though  you 
had  given  your  whole  life  to  the  study  of  philo- 
sophical theories.  In  yourself,  if  you  have  no 
one  to  answer,  you  know  well  what  the  truth  is. 
Therefore  truth  does  not  by  nature  resemble 
empirical  truth  in  the  least,  and  before  entering 
the  world  of  philosophy,  you  must  bid  farewell 
to  scientific  methods  of  search,  and  to  the  accus- 
tomed methods  of  estimating  knowledge.  In  a 
word,  you  must  be  ready  to  accept  something 
absolutely  new,  quite  unlike  what  is  traditional 
and  old.  That  is  why  the  tendency  to  discredit 
scientific  knowledge  is  by  no  means  so  useless 
as  may  at  first  sight  appear  to  the  inexperienced 
eye. 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  187 

That  is  why  irony  and  sarcasm  prove  to  be  a 
necessary  weapon  of  the  investigator.  The 
most  dangerous  enemy  of  new  knowledge  always 
has  been,  and  ahvays  will  be,  inculcated  habit. 
From  the  practical  point  of  view  it  is  much  more 
important  to  a  man  to  know  the  things  which 
may  help  him  to  adapt  himself  to  the  temporary 
conditions  of  his  existence,  than  those  which 
have  a  timeless  value.  The  instinct  of  self-pre- 
servation always  proves  stronger  than  the 
sincerest  desire  for  knowledge.  Moreover,  one 
must  remember  that  the  instinct  has  at  its  dis- 
posal innumerable  and  most  subtle  weapons  of 
defence,  that  all  human  faculties  without  excep- 
tion are  under  its  command,  from  unconscious 
reflexes  up  to  the  enthroned  mind  and  august 
consciousness.  Much  and  often  has  been  said  in 
this  regard,  and  for  once  the  consensus  sapien- 
tium  is  on  my  side.  True,  this  is  treated  as  an 
undeniable  perversion  of  human  nature — and 
here  I  make  my  protest.  I  think  that  there  is 
in  this  nothing  undesirable.  Our  mind  and 
consciousness  must  consider  it  an  honour  that 
they  can  find  themselves  in  the  service  of  in- 
stinct, even  if  it  be  the  instinct  of  self-preserva- 
tion. They  should  not  be  conceited,  and  to  tell 
the  truth  they  are  not  conceited,  but  readily  fulfil 
their  official  mission.  They  pretend  to  priority 
only  in  books,  and  tremble  at  the  thought  of 
pre-eminence  in  life.  If  by  some  accident  they 
were  allowed  freedom  of  action  they  would  go 
mad  with  terror,  like  children  lost  in  a  forest  at 


188  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

night.  Every  time  that  the  mind  and  con- 
sciovisness  begin  to  judge  independently,  they 
reach  destructive  conclusions.  And  then  they 
see  with  surprise  that  this  time  too  they  were 
not  acting  freely,  but  under  the  dictation  of 
the  self-same  instinct,  which  had  assumed  a 
different  character.  The  human  soul  desired  the 
work  of  destruction,  and  she  loosed  the  slaves 
from  their  chains,  and  they  in  wild  enthusiasm 
began  to  celebrate  their  freedom  by  making  great 
havoc,  not  in  the  least  suspecting  that  they 
remained  just  as  they  were  before,  slaves  who 
work  for  others. 

Long  ago  Dostoevsky  pointed  out  that  the 
instinct  of  destruction  is  as  natural  to  the  human 
soul  as  that  of  creation.  Beside  these  two  in- 
stincts all  our  faculties  appear  to  be  minor  psy- 
chological properties,  required  only  under  given, 
and  accidental,  conditions.  Of  truth — as  not 
only  tiie  crass  materialists  now  confess,  but  the 
idealists  also  have  found  in  their  metaphysic — 
nothing  remains  but  the  idea  of  the  norm.  To 
speak  in  more  expressive  and  intelligible  lan- 
guage, truth  exists  only  in  order  that  men  who 
are  separated  in  time  and  space  might  establish 
between  themselves  some  kind  of  communica- 
tion at  least.  That  is,  a  man  must  choose 
between  absolute  loneliness  with  truth,  on  the 
one  side,  and  communion  with  his  neighbours 
and  falsehood,  on  th  e  other.  Which  is  the  better, 
it  will  be  asked.  The  question  is  idle,  I  reply. 
There  is  a  third  way  still :  to  accept  both,  though 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  139 

it  may  at  first  appear  utterly  absurd,  especially 
to  people  who  have  once  for  all  decided  that 
logic,  like  mathematics,  is  infallible.  Whereas 
it  is  possible,  and  not  merely  possible — we  would 
not  be  content  with  a  possibility :  only  a 
German  idealist  can  be  satisfied  with  a  good 
which  was  never  realised  in  any  place  at  all — 
it  is  continually  observed  that  the  most  contra- 
dictory spiritual  states  do  coexist.  All  men  lie 
when  they  begin  to  speak :  our  language  is  so 
imperfectly  arranged  that  the  principle  of  its 
arrangement  presupposes  a  readiness  to  speak 
untruth.  The  more  abstract  the  subject  is,  the 
more  does  the  disposition  to  lie  increase,  until, 
when  we  touch  upon  the  most  complicated 
questions,  we  have  to  lie  incessantly,  and  the 
lie  is  the  more  intolerable  and  coarse  the  more 
sincere  we  arc.  For  a  sincere  man  is  convinced 
that  veracity  is  assured  by  the  absence  of  con- 
tradictions, and  in  order  to  avoid  all  appearance 
of  lie,  h  e  tries  to  make  a  logical  agreement  betAveen 
his  opinions  :  that  is  to  raise  his  lie  to  Herculean 
heights.  In  his  turn,  when  he  receives  the 
opinions  of  others,  he  applies  the  same  criterion, 
and  the  moment  he  notices  the  smallest  contra- 
diction, he  begins  naively  to  cry  out  against  the 
violation  of  the  fundamental  decencies.  What 
is  particularly  curious  is  that  all  the  learned 
students  of  philosophy — and  it  is  strictly  to 
them  that  I  address  myself  here,  as  the  reader 
has  probably  observed  long  ago — certainly  are 
well  aware  that  no  single  one  of  the  mightiest 


140  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

philosophers  has  hitherto  succeeded  in  ehminat- 
ing  all  contradictions  from  his  system.  How 
well  armed  was  Spinoza  !  He  spared  no  effort, 
and  stuck  at  nothing,  and  yet  his  remarkable 
system  will  not  bear  logical  criticism.  That  is 
a  matter  of  common  knowledge.  So  it  appears 
that  we  ought  to  ask  what  the  devil  is  the  use 
of  consistency,  and  whether  contradictions  are 
not  the  condition  of  truthfulness  in  one's  con- 
ception of  the  world.  And  after  Kant,  his  dis- 
ciples and  successors  might  have  answered 
quietly  that  the  devil  alone  knows  the  use  of  con- 
sistency, and  that  truth  lives  by  contradictions. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  Hegel  and  Schopenhauer, 
each  in  his  own  way,  partly  attempted  to  make 
an  admission  of  this  kind,  but  they  derived  small 
profit  from  it. 

Let  us  try  to  draw  some  conclusions  from  the 
foregoing.  Certainly,  while  logic  can  be  useful, 
it  would  be  unjustifiable  recklessness  to  refuse 
its  services.  Nor  are  the  conclusions  devoid 
of  interest,  as  we  shall  see.  First  of  all,  when 
you  speak,  never  trouble  to  be  consistent  with 
what  you  said  before  :  that  will  put  an  unneces- 
sary cheek  upon  your  freedom,  which,  without 
that  additional  fetter,  is  already  chained  in  words 
and  grammatical  forms.  When  you  are  listen- 
ing to  a  friend  or  reading  a  book,  do  not  assign 
great  value  to  individual  words  or  even  to 
phrases.  Forget  separate  thoughts,  and  give 
no  great  consideration  even  to  logically  arranged 
ideas.     Remember    that    though    your    friend 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  141 

desires  it,  he  cannot  express  himself  save  by 
ready-made  forms  of  speech.  Look  well  to  the 
expression  of  his  face,  listen  to  the  intonation  of 
his  voice — this  will  help  you  to  penetrate  through 
his  words  to  his  soul.  Not  only  in  conversa- 
tion, but  even  in  a  written  book,  can  one  over- 
hear the  sound,  even  the  timbre  of  the  author's 
voice,  and  notice  the  finest  shades  of  expression 
in  his  eyes  and  face.  Do  not  fasten  upon  con- 
tradictions, do  not  dispute,  do  not  demand  argu- 
ment :  only  listen  with  attention.  In  return 
for  which,  when  you  begin  to  speak,  you  also 
will  have  to  face  no  dispute,  nor  to  produce 
arguments,  which  you  know  well  you  neither 
have  nor  could  have.  So  you  will  not  be 
annoyed  by  having  pointed  out  to  you  your 
contradictions  which  you  know  well  were  always 
there,  and  will  always  be  there,  and  with  which 
it  is  painful,  nay  quite  impossible,  for  you  to 
part.  Then,  then — and  this  is  most  important 
of  all — you  will  at  last  be  convinced  that  truth 
does  not  depend  on  logic,  that  there  are  no 
logical  truths  at  all,  that  you  therefore  have  the 
right  to  search  for  what  you  like,  how  you  like, 
without  argument,  and  that  if  something  results 
from  your  search,  it  will  not  be  a  formula,  not  a 
law,  not  a  principle,  not  even  an  idea  !  Only 
think  :  while  the  object  of  search  is  '  truth,'  as 
it  is  understood  nowadays,  one  must  be  pre- 
pared for  anything.  For  instance,  the  materi- 
alists will  be  right,  and  matter  and  energy  are 
the  basis  of  the  world.    It  does  not  matter  that 


142  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

we  can  immediately  confound  the  materialists 
with  their  conclusions.  The  history  of  thought 
can  show  many  cases  of  the  complete  rehabilita- 
tion of  opinions  that  have  been  cast  off  and 
reviled.  Yesterday's  error  may  be  to-morrow's 
truth,  even  a  self-evident  truth.  And  apart 
from  its  content,  wherein  is  materialism  bad  ? 
It  is  a  harmonious,  consistent,  and  well -sus- 
tained system.  I  have  already  pointed  out  that 
the  materialistic  conception  of  the  world  is  just 
as  capable  of  enchanting  men  as  any  other — 
pantheistic  or  idealistic.  And  since  we  have 
come  so  far,  I  confess  that  in  my  opinion  no  ideas 
at  all  are  bad  in  themselves  :  so  far  I  have  been 
able  to  follow  with  pleasure  the  development  of 
the  idea  of  progress  to  the  accompaniment  of 
factories,  railways,  and  aeroplanes.  Still,  it 
seems  to  me  childish  to  hope  that  all  these  trivi- 
alities— I  mean  the  ideas — will  become  the  object 
of  man's  serious  seeking.  If  that  desperate 
struggle  of  man  with  God  and  the  world  were 
possible,  of  which  legend  and  history  tell — 
think  of  Prometheus  alone — then  it  was  not 
for  truth  and  not  for  the  idea.  Man  desires  to 
be  strong  and  rich  and  free,  the  wretched,  in- 
significant creature  of  dust,  whom  the  first 
chance  shock  crushes  like  a  worm  before  one's 
eyes, — and  if  he  speaks  of  ideas  it  is  only  because 
he  despairs  of  success  in  his  proper  search.  He 
feels  that  he  is  a  worm,  he  fears  that  he  must 
again  return  to  the  dust  which  he  is,  and  he  lies, 
pretending  that  his  misery  is  not  terrible  to  him, 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  148 

if  only  he  knew  the  truth.  Forgive  him  his  he, 
for  he  speaks  it  only  with  his  lips.  Let  him  say 
what  he  will,  how  he  will ;  so  long  as  we  hear  in 
his  words  the  familiar  note  of  the  call  to  battle, 
and  the  fire  of  desperate  inexorable  resolution 
burns  in  his  eyes,  we  will  understand  him.  We 
are  used  to  decipher  hieroglyphs.  But  if  he, 
like  the  Germans  of  to-day,  accepts  truth  and 
the  norm  as  the  final  goal  of  human  aspiration, 
we  shall  also  know  with  whom  we  have  to  deal, 
were  he  by  destiny  endowed  with  the  eloquence 
of  Cicero.  Better  utter  loneliness  than  com- 
munion with  such  a  man.  Yet  such  com- 
munion does  not  exclude  utter  loneliness ; 
perhaps  it  even  assists  the  hard  achievement. 


XI 

I  and  Thou 

The  familiar  expression, '  to  look  into  another's 
soul,'  which  by  force  of  habit  at  first  sight  seems 
extremely  intelligible,  on  closer  observation 
appears  so  unintelligible  that  one  is  forced  to  ask 
whether  it  has  any  meaning  at  all.  Try  to  bend, 
mentally,  over  another's  soul :  you  will  see  noth- 
ing but  a  vast,  empty,  black  abyss,  and  you  will 
only  be  seized  with  giddiness  for  your  pains. 
Thus,  properly  speaking,  the  expression  '  to  look 
into  another's  soul '  is  only  an  abortive  meta- 
phor. All  that  we  can  do  is  to  argue  from  the 
outward  data  to  the  inward  feelings.    From 


144  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

tears  we  deduce  pain,  from  pallor,  fear,  from  a 
smile,  joy.  But  is  this  to  look  into  another's 
soul  ?  It  is  only  to  give  room  to  a  series  of 
purely  logical  processes  in  one's  head.  The 
other's  sovil  remains  as  invisible  as  before  ;  we 
only  guess  at  it,  perhaps  rightly,  perhaps  mis- 
takenly. Naturally  this  conclusion  irritates  us. 
What  a  miserable  world  it  is  where  it  is  quite 
impossible  to  see  the  very  thing  that  we  desire 
above  all  to  see.  But  irritation  is  almost  the 
normal  spiritual  state  of  a  man  who  thinks  and 
seeks.  Whenever  it  is  particularly  important  to 
him  to  be  sure  of  something,  after  a  number  of 
desperate  attempts  he  is  convinced  that  his 
curiosity  cannot  be  satisfied.  And  now  the 
mocking  mind  adds  a  new  question  to  the  old  : 
Why  look  for  another's  soul  when  you  have  not 
seen  your  own  ?  And  is  there  a  soul  ?  Many 
have  believed  and  still  do  believe  that  there  is  no 
soul  at  all,  but  only  a  science  of  it,  called  psy- 
chology. It  is  known  that  psychology  says 
nothing  of  the  soul,  considering  that  its  task  is 
confined  to  the  study  of  spiritual  states — states, 
by  the  way,  which  have  as  yet  hardly  been 
studied  at  all.  .  .  .  What  is  the  way  out  ?  One 
can  answer  irony  with  irony,  or  even  with  abuse. 
One  can  deny  psychology  the  right  to  be  called  a 
science  and  call  the  materialists  a  pack  of  fools, 
as  is  often  done.  Incontestably,  anger  has  its 
rights.  But  this  has  sense  and  meaning  only 
while  you  are  among  people  and  are  listened  to. 
Nobody  wants  to  be  indignant  alone  with  one- 


PENULTIMATE  WORDS  145 

self,  when  one  is  not  even  reckoning  upon  making 
use  of  one's  indignation  for  literary  purposes  : 
for  even  a  writer  is  not  always  writing,  and  is 
more  often  preoccupied  with  transitoiy  thoughts 
than  with  his  forthcoming  works.  One  prefers 
to  approach  the  enchanted  cave,  though  for  the 
thousandth  time,  with  every  possible  precaution. 
Perhaps  it  is  only  upon  the  approach  of  an  out- 
side soul  that  another's  soul  becomes  invisible, 
and  if  she  be  caught  unawares  she  will  not  have 
time  to  disappear.  So  that  ponderous  psycho- 
logy, which  like  any  other  science  always  pro- 
claims its  plans  and  methods  aloud  before  under- 
taking anything,  is  utterly  unsuited  to  the  cap- 
ture of  a  thing  so  light  and  mobile  as  the  human 
soul.  But  let  us  leave  psychology  with  the 
honourable  name  of  science  ;  let  us  even  respect 
the  materialists,  while  we  endeavour  to  track 
down  the  soul  by  other  means.  Perhaps  in  the 
depth  of  the  dark  abyss  of  which  we  spoke, 
something  might  be  found,  were  it  not  for  the 
giddiness.  Therefore  it  is  not  so  necessary  to 
invent  new  methods  as  to  learn  to  look  fearlessly 
into  the  depths,  Avhich  always  appear  unfathom- 
able to  the  unaccustomed  eye. 

After  all,  unfathomability  is  not  so  entirely 
useless  to  man.  It  was  driven  into  our  heads 
as  children  that  the  human  mind  could  compass 
only  those  things  which  are  limited.  But  this 
only  proves  that  we  have  yet  another  prejudice 
to  get  rid  of.  If  it  comes  to  giving  up  the  right  of 
abusing  the  materialists  and  of  being  taught  by 


146  PENULTIMATE  WORDS 

psychology,  and  something  else  into  the  bargain 
— well,  we  are  used  to  that.  But  in  return  we 
may  at  last  be  granted  a  glimpse  of  the  mys- 
terious '  thou,'  and  perhaps  the  '  I '  will  cease  to 
be  problematical  as  well.  Patience  is  a  sickening 
thing  ;  but  remember  the  fakirs  and  the  other 
worthies  of  the  same  kind.  They  succeed  by 
patience  alone.  And  apparently  they  arrive  at 
something  ;  but  not  at  universal  truths,  I  am 
ready  to  vouch  for  that.  The  world  has  long 
been  weary  of  universal  truths.  Even  '  truth  ' 
pure  and  simple  makes  no  whisper  in  my  ear. 
We  must  find  a  way  of  escape  from  the  power  of 
every  kind  of  truth.  This  victory  the  fakirs 
tried  to  win.  They  can  produce  no  arguments 
to  prove  their  right,  for  the  visible  victory  was 
never  on  their  side.  One  conquers  by  bayonets, 
big  guns,  microscopes  and  logical  arguments. 
Microscopes  and  logic  give  the  palm  to  limitation. 
And  yet,  though  limitation  often  strengthens,  it 
also  happens  that  it  kills. 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 


THE   THEORY   OF  KNOWLEDGE 

The  Theory  of  Knowledge  as  Apologetics 

The  modern  theory  of  knowledge,  though  it 
always  consciously  takes  its  rise  from  Kant,  has 
in  one  respect  quite  disregarded  the  master's 
commandment.  It  is  very  strange  that  the 
theorists  of  knowledge,  who  usually  cannot  agree 
among  themselves  upon  anything,  have  as  it  were 
agreed  to  understand  the  problem  of  knowledge 
quite  otherwise  than  Kant.  Kant  undertook  to 
investigate  our  cognitive  faculties  in  order  to 
establish  foundations,  in  virtue  of  which  certain 
existing  sciences  could  be  accepted,  and  others 
rejected.  One  may  say  that  the  second  purpose 
was  chief.  Hume's  scepticism  made  him  uneasy 
only  in  theory.  He  knew  beforehand  that 
whatever  theory  of  knowledge  he  might  invent, 
mathematics  and  the  natural  sciences  would 
remain  sciences  and  metaphysics  be  rejected. 
In  other  words,  his  aim  was  not  to  justify  science 
but  to  explain  the  possibility  of  its  existence  ; 
and  he  started  from  the  point  of  view  that  no 
one  can  seriously  doubt  the  truths  of  mathe- 
matics and  natural  science.  But  now  the  posi- 
tion is  different.  The  theorists  of  knowledge 
direct  all  their  efforts  towards  justifying  scicn- 

149 


150     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

tific  knowledge.  Why  ?  Does  scientific  know- 
ledge really  need  justification  ?  Of  course  there 
are  cranks,  sometimes  even  cranks  of  genius,  like 
our  own  Tolstoi,  who  attack  science ;  but  their 
attacks  offend  no  one,  nor  do  they  cause  alarm. 

Scientists  continue  their  researches  as  before  ; 
the  universities  flourish ;  discovery  follows  dis- 
covery. And  the  theorists  of  knowledge  them- 
selves do  not  spend  sleepless  nights  in  the  en- 
deavour to  find  new  justifications  for  science. 
Yet,  I  repeat,  though  they  can  come  to  an  under- 
standing about  practically  nothing  else,  they 
amaze  us  by  their  unanimity  upon  this  point — 
they  are  all  convinced  that  it  is  their  duty  to 
justify  science  and  exalt  her.  So  that  the  modern 
theory  of  knowledge  is  no  longer  a  science,  but 
an  apology.  And  its  demonstrations  are  like 
those  of  apology.  Once  science  must  be  de- 
fended, it  is  necessary  to  begin  by  praising  her, 
that  is  by  selecting  evidence  and  data  to  show 
that  science  fulfils  some  mission  or  other,  but 
indubitably  a  very  high  and  important  one,  or, 
on  the  other  hand,  by  painting  a  picture  of  the 
fate  that  would  overtake  mankind,  if  it  was  de- 
prived of  science.  Thus  the  apologetic  element 
has  begun  to  play  almost  as  large  a  part  in  the 
theory  of  knowledge  as  it  has  done  hitherto  in 
theology.  Perhaps  the  time  is  at  hand  when 
scientific  apologetics  will  be  officially  recognised 
as  a  philosophic  discipline. 

But,  qui  s' excuse  s' accuse.  It  is  plain  that  all 
is  not  well  with  science,  since  she  has  begun  to 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  151 

justify  herself.  Besides,  apologetics  are  only 
apologetics,  and  sooner  or  later  the  theory  of 
knowledge  will  be  tired  of  psalms  of  praise,  and 
will  demand  a  more  complex  and  responsible 
task,  and  a  real  labour.  At  present  the  theorists 
start  with  the  assumption  that  scientific  know- 
ledge is  perfect  knowledge,  and  therefore  the 
premisses  upon  which  it  is  builded  are  not  subject 
to  criticism.  The  law  of  causation  is  not  justified 
because  it  appears  to  be  the  expression  of  a  real 
relation  of  things,  nor  even  because  we  have  data 
at  our  disposal  which  could  convince  us  that  it 
does  not  and  will  never  admit  exceptions,  that 
uncaused  effects  are  impossible.  All  these  things 
are  lacking ;  but,  we  are  told,  they  are  not  needed. 

The  chief  thing  is  that  the  causal  law  makes 
science  possible,  while  to  reject  it  means  to  reject 
science  and  knowledge  generally,  all  anticipa- 
tion, and  even,  as  some  few  hold,  reason  itself. 
Clearly,  if  one  has  to  choose  between  a  slightly 
dubious  admission  on  the  one  side  and  the  pros- 
pect of  chaos  and  insanity  on  the  other,  there 
will  be  no  long  hesitation.  Apologetics,  we  see, 
has  chosen  the  most  powerful  of  arguments,  ad 
hominem.  But  all  such  arguments  partake  of 
one  common  defect ;  they  are  not  constant,  and 
they  are  double-edged. 

To-day  they  defend  scientific  knowledge  ;  to- 
morrow they  will  attack  it.  Indeed,  it  so  happens 
that  the  very  belief  in  the  causal  law  begets  a 
great  disquiet  and  turmoil  in  the  soul,  which 
finally  produces  all  the  horrors  of  chaos  and 


152     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

madness.  The  certainty  that  the  existing  order 
is  immutable  is  for  certain  minds  synonymous 
Avith  the  certainty  that  Hfe  is  nonsensical  and 
absurd.  Probably  the  disciples  of  Christ  had 
that  feeling  when  the  last  words  of  their  crucified 
Master  reached  them  from  the  cross  :  '  My  God, 
my  God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  me  ?  '  And 
the  modern  theorists  may  explain  triumphantly 
that  when  the  law  became  the  instrument  of 
chaos  and  madness,  it  was  ipso  facto  abolished. 
'  Christ  has  risen,'  say  the  disciples  of  Christ. 

I  have  said  that  the  theorists  may  triumph  ; 
but  I  must  confess  that  I  have  not  found  in  any 
of  them  an  open  glorification  of  such  an  obvious 
proof  of  the  truth  of  their  teaching.  Of  the  re- 
surrection of  Christ  they  say  not  a  word — on  the 
contrary,  they  make  every  effort  to  avoid  it  and 
pass  it  by  in  silence.  And  this  circumstance 
compels  us  to  pause  and  think.  A  dilemma 
arises  :  if  you  grant  that  the  law  of  causation 
suffers  no  exception,  then  your  soul  will  be  eter- 
nally haunted  by  the  last  words  of  the  crucified 
Christ ;  if  you  do  not,  then  you  will  have  no 
science.  Some  assert  that  it  is  impossible  to  live 
without  science,  without  knowledge,  that  such  a 
life  is  horror  and  madness  ;  others  cannot  be 
reconciled  to  the  thought  that  the  most  perfect 
of  men  died  the  death  of  a  murderer.  What  shall 
we  do  ?  Without  which  thing  is  it  impossible  for 
man  to  live  ?  Without  scientific  knowledge,  or 
without  the  conviction  that  truth  and  spiritual 
perfection  are  in  the  last  resort  the  victors  of  this 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  153 

world  ?     And  how  will  the  theory  of  knowledge 
stand  with  regard  to  questions  such  as  these  ? 

Will  it  still  continue  its  exercises  in  apologetics 
or  will  it  at  last  understand  that  this  is  not  its 
real  problem,  and  that  if  it  would  preserve  the 
right  to  be  called  philosophy,  it  will  have  not  to 
justify  and  exalt  the  existing  science,  but  to  ex- 
amine and  direct  some  science  of  its  own.  It 
means  above  all  to  put  the  question  :  Is  scien- 
tific knowledge  really  perfect,  or  is  it  perhaps  im- 
perfect, and  should  it  therefore  yield  its  present 
honourable  place  to  another  science  ?  Evidently 
this  is  the  most  important  question  for  the  theory 
of  knowledge,  yet  this  question  it  never  puts. 
It  wants  to  exalt  existing  science.  It  has  been, 
is  now,  and  probably  will  long  continue  to  be, 
apologetics. 

Truth  and  Utility 

Mill,  seeking  to  prove  that  all  our  sciences, 
even  the  mathematical,  have  an  empiric  origin, 
brings  forward  the  following  consideration.  If 
on  every  occasion  that  we  had  to  take  twice  two 
things,  some  deity  slipped  one  extra  thing  into  our 
hands,  we  should  be  convinced  that  twice  two  is 
not  four  but  five.  And  perhaps  Mill  is  right : 
perhaps  we  should  not  divine  what  was  the 
matter.  We  are  much  more  concerned  to  dis- 
cover what  is  practically  necessary  and  directly 
useful  to  us  than  to  search  for  truth.  If  a  deity 
with  each  four  things  slipped  a  fifth  into  our 


154     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

hands,  we  should  accept  the  additional  thing  and 
consider  it  natural,  intelligible,  necessary,  im- 
possible to  be  otherwise.  The  very  uniformity 
in  the  sequence  of  phenomena  observed  by  the 
empirical  philosophers  was  also  slipped  into 
our  hands.  By  whom?  When?  Who  dares 
to  ask  ?  Once  the  law  is  established  no  one  is 
interested  in  anything  any  more.  Now  we  can 
foretell  the  future,  now  we  can  use  the  thing 
slipped  into  our  hands,  and  the  rest — cometh  of 
the  evil  one. 


Philosophers  and  Teachers 

Every  one  knows  that  Schopenhauer  was  for 
many  years  not  only  not  recognised,  but  not  even 
read.  His  books  were  used  for  waste-paper.  It 
was  only  towards  the  end  of  his  life  that  he  had 
readers  and  admirers — and,  of  course,  critics. 
For  every  admirer  is  at  bottom  a  most  merciless 
and  importunate  critic.  He  must  understand 
everything,  make  everything  agree,  and  of  course 
the  master  must  supply  the  necessary  explana- 
tions. Schopenhauer,  who  did  not  have  the 
experience  of  being  a  master  till  his  old  age,  at 
first  behaved  very  benevolently  to  his  disciples' 
questions  and  patiently  gave  the  "explanations 
required.  But  the  further  one  goes  into  the 
forest,  the  thicker  are  the  trees.  The  most  loyal 
perplexities  of  his  pupils  became  more  and  more 
importunate,  until  at  last  the  old  man  lost 
patience.     '  I  didn't  undertake  to  explain  all  the 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE     155 

secrets  of  the  universe  to  every  one  who  wanted 
to  know  them,'  he  once  exclaimed,  when  a  cer- 
tain pupil  persisted  in  emphasising  the  contradic- 
tions he  had  noticed  in  Schopenhauer.  And 
really — is  a  master  obliged  to  explain  every- 
thing ?  In  Schopenhauer's  words  we  are  given 
an  answer,  not  ambiguous.  A  philosopher  not 
only  cannot  be  a  teacher,  he  does  not  want  to 
be  one.  There  are  teachers  in  schools,  in  univer- 
sities :  they  teach  arithmetic,  grammar,  logic, 
metaphysics.  The  philosopher  has  quite  a 
different  task,  one  which  does  not  in  the  least 
resemble  teaching. 

Truth  as  a  Social  Substance 

There  are  many  ways,  real  and  imaginary,  of 
objectively  verifying  philosophic  opinions.  But 
they  all  reduce,  we  know,  to  trial  by  the  law  of 
contradiction.  True,  every  one  is  aware  that  no 
single  philosophic  doctrine  is  able  to  support 
such  a  trial,  so  that,  pending  a  better  future, 
people  consider  it  possible  to  display  a  certain 
tenderness  in  the  examination.  They  are 
usually  satisfied  if  they  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  philosopher  made  a  genuine  attempt 
to  avoid  contradictions.  For  instance,  they 
forgive  Spinoza  his  inconsistency  because  of  his 
amor  intellectualis  Dei  ;  Kant,  for  his  love  of 
morality  and  his  praise  of  disinterestedness ; 
Plato,  for  the  originality  and  purity  of  his 
idealistic  impulses  ;  and  Aristotle,  for  the  vast- 


156     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

ness  and  universality  of  his  knowledge.  So  that, 
strictly  speaking,  we  must  confess  that  we  have 
no  real  objective  method  of  verifying  a  philoso- 
phical truth,  and  when  we  criticise  other  people's 
systems,  we  judge  arbitrarily  after  all.  If  a 
philosopher  suits  us  for  some  reason,  we  do  not 
trouble  him  with  the  law  of  contradiction  ;  if  he 
does  not,  we  summon  him  before  the  court  to  be 
judged  with  the  utmost  rigour  of  the  law,  con- 
fident beforehand  that  he  will  be  found  guilty  on 
every  count.  But  sometimes  there  arises  the 
desire  to  verify  one' sown  philosophic  convictions. 
To  play  the  farce  of  objective  verification  with 
them,  to  look  for  contradictions  in  oneself — I 
do  not  suppose  that  even  Germans  are  capable 
of  that.  And  yet  one  desires  to  know  whether 
he  does  indeed  possess  the  truth  or  whether  he 
has  only  a  universal  error  in  his  hands.  What 
is  to  be  done  ?  I  think  there  is  a  way.  He 
should  think  to  himself  that  it  is  absolutely 
impossible  for  his  truth  to  be  binding  upon 
anybody.  If  in  spite  of  this  he  still  refuses  to  re- 
nounce her,  if  the  truth  can  suffer  such  an  ordeal 
and  yet  remain  the  same  to  him  as  she  was  before, 
then  it  may  be  supposed  that  she  is  worth  some- 
thing. For  often  we  appreciate  conviction,  not 
because  it  has  an  intrinsic  value,  but  because  it 
commands  a  high  price  in  the  market.  Robin- 
son Crusoe  probably  had  a  totally  different 
way  of  thinking  to  that  of  a  modern  writer  or 
professor,  whose  books  are  exposed  to  the  appre- 
ciation of  his  numerous  confreres,  who  can  create 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE     157 

for  him  the  renown  of  a  wise  man  and  a^'scholar, 
or  utterly  ruin  his  reputation.  Even  with  the 
Greeks,  whom  we  are  accustomed  to  regard  as 
model  thinkers,  opinions  had — ^to  use  the  lan- 
guage of  economics — not  so  much  a  demand,  as 
an  exchange  value. 

The  Greeks  had  no  knowledge  of  the  printing- 
press,  and  no  literary  reviews.  They  usually 
took  their  wisdom  out  into  the  market-place, 
and  applied  all  their  efforts  to  persuade  people 
to  acknowledge  its  value.  And  it  is  hard  to 
maintain  that  wisdom,  which  is  constantly  being 
offered  to  people,  should  not  adapt  itself  to 
people's  tastes.  It  is  truer  to  say  that  wisdom 
became  accustomed  to  value  itself  to  the  exact 
degree  to  which  it  could  count  on  people's  appre- 
ciation. In  other  words,  it  appears  that  the 
value  of  wisdom,  like  that  of  all  other  commodities, 
not  only  with  us,  but  with  the  Greeks  before  us, 
is  a  social  affair.  The  most  modern  philosophy 
has  given  up  concealing  the  fact.  The  teleo- 
logy of  the  rationalists,  who  follow  Fichte,  as 
well  as  of  the  pragmatists  who  consider  them- 
selves the  successors  of  Mill  is  openly  based 
upon  the  social  point  of  view,  and  speaks  of 
collective  creations.  Truth  which  is  not  good 
for  all,  and  always,  in  the  home  market  and  the 
foreign — is  not  truth.  Perhaps  its  value  is  even 
defined  by  the  quantity  of  labour  spent  upon 
it.  Marx  might  triumph  :  under  different  flags 
his  theory  has  found  admission  into  every  sphere 
of  contemporary  thought.     There  would  hardly 


158     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

be  found  one  philosopher  who  would  apply  the 
method  of  verifying  truth  which  I  have  pro- 
posed ;  and  hardly  a  single  modern  idea  which 
would  stand  the  test. 


Doctrines  and  Deductions 

If  you  want  to  ruin  a  new  idea — try  to  give  it 
the  widest  possible  publicity.  Men  will  begin  to 
reflect  upon  it,  to  try  it  by  their  daily  needs,  to  in- 
terpret it,  to  make  deductions  from  it,  in  a  word 
to  squeeze  it  into  their  own  prepared  logical 
apparatus  ;  or,  more  likely,  they  will  cover  it 
up  with  the  debris  of  their  own  habitual  and  in- 
telligible ideas,  and  it  will  become  as  dead  as 
everything  that  is  begotten  by  logic.  Perhaps 
this  explains  the  tendency  of  philosophers  to  so 
clothe  their  thoughts  that  their  form  may  hinder 
the  approach  of  the  general  public  to  them.  The 
majority  of  philosophic  systems  are  chaotically 
and  obscurely  expounded,  so  that  not  every 
educated  person  can  understand  them.  It  is 
a  pity  to  kill  one's  own  child,  and  every  one  does 
his  best  to  save  it  from  premature  death.  The 
most  dangerous  enemies  of  an  idea  are  '  deduc- 
tions '  from  it,  as  though  they  followed  of  them- 
selves. The  idea  does  not  presuppose  them ; 
they  are  usually  pressed  upon  it.  Indeed,  people 
very  often  say  :  '  The  idea  is  quite  right,  but 
it  leads  to  conclusions  which  are  not  at  all 
acceptable.'  Again,  how  often  has  a  philosopher 
to  attend  the  sad  spectacle  of  his  pupil's  desert- 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE     159 

ing  all  his  ideas,  and  feeding  only  upon  the  con- 
clusions from  them.  Every  thinker  who  has 
had  the  misfortune  to  attract  attention  while 
he  was  yet  alive,  knows  by  bitter  experience 
what '  deductions  '  are.  And  yet  you  will  rarely 
find  a  philosopher  to  offer  open  and  courageous 
resistance  to  his  continuators  ;  and  still  more 
rarely  a  philosopher  to  say  outright  that  his 
work  needs  no  continuation,  that  it  will  not 
bear  continuation,  that  it  exists  only  in  and  for 
itself,  that  it  is  self-sufficient.  If  some  one  said 
this,  how  would  he  be  answered  ?  People  could 
not  dispute  with  him — try  to  dispute  with  a 
man  who  wants  neither  to  dispute  nor  to 
demonstrate. 

The  only  answer  is  an  appeal  to  the  popular 
verdict,  to  lynch  law.  People  are  so  weak  and 
naive  that  they  will  at  all  costs  see  a  teacher 
(in  the  usual  sense  of  the  word)  in  every  philoso- 
pher. In  other  words,  they  really  want  to  throw 
upon  him  the  responsibility  for  their  actions, 
their  present,  their  future,  and  their  whole  fate. 
Socrates  was  not  executed  for  teaching,  but  be- 
cause the  Athenians  thought  he  was  dangerous 
to  Athens.  And  in  all  ages  men  have  approached 
truth  with  this  criterion,  as  though  they  knew 
beforehand  that  truth  must  be  of  use  and  able 
to  protect  them.  One  of  the  greatest  teachings, 
Christianity,  was  also  persecuted  because  it 
seemed  dangerous  to  the  self-appointed  guar- 
dians, or,  if  you  will,  because  it  was  really  very 
dangerous  to  Roman  ideals.     Of  course,  neither 


160     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

Socrates'  death  nor  the  deaths  of  thousands  of 
the  early  Christians  saved  the  ancient  culture 
and  polity  from  decay  :  but  no  one  has  learned 
anything  from  the  lesson.  People  think  that 
these  were  all  accidental  mistakes,  against  which 
no  one  was  secure  in  ancient  times,  but  which 
will  never  again  recur  ;  and  therefore  they  con- 
tinue to  make  '  deductions  '  as  they  used  from 
every  truth,  and  to  judge  the  truth  by  the  de- 
ductions they  have  made.  And  they  have  their 
reward.  Although  there  have  been  on  earth 
many  wise  men  who  knew  much  that  is  infinitely 
more  valuable  than  all  the  treasures  for  which 
men  are  ready  even  to  sacrifice  their  lives,  still 
wisdom  is  to  us  a  book  with  seven  seals,  a  hidden 
hoard  upon  which  we  cannot  lay  our  hands. 
Many — the  vast  majority — are  even  seriously 
convinced  that  philosophy  is  a  most  tedious  and 
painful  occupation  to  which  are  doomed  some 
miserable  wretches  who  enjoy  the  odious  privi- 
lege of  being  called  philosophers.  I  believe  that 
even  professors  of  philosophy,  the  more  clever  of 
them,  not  seldom  share  this  opinion  and  suppose 
that  therein  lies  the  ultimate  secret  of  their 
science,  revealed  to  the  initiate  alone.  Fortun- 
ately, the  position  is  otherwise.  It  may  be  that 
mankind  is  destined  never  to  change  in  this  re- 
spect, and  a  thousand  years  hence  men  will  care 
much  more  about  '  deductions,'  theoretical  and 
practical,  from  the  truth  than  about  truth  itself ; 
but  real  philosophers,  men  who  know  what  they 
want  and  at  what  they  aim,  will  hardly  be  em- 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE     161 

barrassed  by  this.  They  will  utter  their  truths 
as  before,  without  in  the  least  considering  what 
conclusions  will  be  drawn  from  them  by  the 
lovers  of  logic. 

Truths,  Proven  and  Unproven 

Whence  did  we  get  the  habit  of  requiring 
proofs  of  each  idea  that  is  expressed  ?  If  we  put 
aside  the  consideration,  as  having  no  real  mean- 
ing in  the  present  case,  that  men  do  often  pur- 
posely deceive  their  neighbours  for  gain  or  other 
interests,  then  strictly  speaking  the  necessity  for 
proof  is  entirely  removed.  It  is  true  that  we  can 
still  deceive  ourselves  and  fall  into  involuntary 
error.  Sometimes  we  take  a  vision  for  a  reality, 
and  we  wish  to  guard  against  that  offensive  mis- 
take. But  as  soon  as  the  possibility  of  bona  fide 
error  is  removed,  then  we  may  relate  simply 
without  arguments,  judgments,  or  references. 
If  you  please,  believe ;  if  you  don't,  don't. 
And  there  is  one  province,  the  very  province 
which  has  always  attracted  to  itself  the  most 
remarkable  representatives  of  the  human  race, 
where  proofs  in  the  general  acceptation  are 
even  quite  impossible.  We  have  been  hither- 
to taught  that  that  which  cannot  be  proved, 
should  not  be  spoken  about.  Still  worse,  we 
have  so  arranged  our  language  that,  strictly 
speaking,  everything  we  say  is  expressed  in  the 
form  of  a  judgment,  that  is,  in  a  form  which  pre- 
supposes not  merely  the  possibility  but  the  neces- 

L 


162     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

sity  of  proofs.  Perhaps  this  is  the  reason  why 
metaphysics  has  been  the  object  of  incessant 
attack.  Metaphysics  evidently  was  not  only 
unable  to  find  a  form  of  expression  for  her 
truths  which  would  free  her  from  the  obligation 
of  proof ;  she  did  not  even  want  to.  She  con- 
sidered herself  the  science  par  excellence,  and 
therefore  supposed  that  she  had  more  largely 
and  more  strictly  to  prove  the  judgments  which 
she  took  under  her  wing.  She  thought  that  if 
she  were  to  neglect  the  duty  of  demonstration 
she  would  lose  all  her  rights.  And  that,  I 
imagine,  was  her  fatal  mistake.  The  corre- 
spondence of  rights  and  duties  is  perhaps  a 
cardinal  truth  (or  a  cardinal  fiction)  of  the  doc- 
trine of  law,  but  it  has  been  introduced  into  the 
sphere  of  philosophy  by  a  misunderstanding. 
Here,  rather,  the  contrary  principle  is  enthroned : 
rights  are  in  inverse  proportion  to  duties. 
And  only  there  where  all  duties  have  ceased  is 
the  greatest  and  most  sovereign  right  acquired — 
the  right  of  communion  with  ultimate  truths. 
Here  we  must  not  for  one  moment  forget  that 
ultimate  truths  have  nothing  in  common 
with  middle  truths,  the  logical  construction 
of  which  we  have  so  diligently  studied  for 
the  last  two  thousand  years.  The  funda- 
mental difference  is  that  the  ultimate  truths 
are  absolutely  unintelligible.  Unintelligible, 
I  repeat,  but  not  inaccessible.  It  is  true 
that  middle  truths  also  are,  strictly  speak- 
ing,   unintelligible.       Who    will    assert    that 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  163 

he   understands   light,   heat,   pain,   pride,  joy, 
degradation  ? 

Nevertheless,  our  mind,  in  alliance  with  omni- 
potent habit,  has,  with  the  assistance  of  some 
strained  interpretation,  given  to  the  combination 
of  phenomena  in  the  segment  of  universal  life 
that  is  accessible  to  us,  a  certain  kind  of  har- 
mony and  unity,  and  this  from  time  immemorial 
has  gained  repute  under  the  name  of  an  intelli- 
gible explanation  of  the  created  world.  But  the 
knoAvn,  which  is  the  familiar,  world  is  sufficiently 
unintelligible  to  make  good  faith  require  of  us 
that  we  should  accept  unintelligibility  as  the 
fundamental  predicate  of  being.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  hold,  as  some  do,  that  the  only  reason 
why  we  do  not  understand  the  world  is  that 
something  is  hidden  from  us  or  that  our  mind  is 
weak,  so  that  if  the  Supreme  Being  wished  to  un- 
veil the  secret  of  creation  to  us,  or  if  the  human 
brain  should  so  much  develop  in  the  next  ten 
million  years  that  he  will  excel  us  as  far  as  we 
excel  our  official  ancestor,  the  ape,  then  the 
world  will  be  intelligible.  No,  no,  no !  By 
their  very  essence  the  operations  which  we  per- 
form upon  reality  to  understand  it  are  useful  and 
necessary  only  so  long  as  they  do  not  pass  a  cer- 
tain limit.  It  is  possible  to  understand  the  ar- 
rangement of  a  locomotive.  It  is  also  legitimate 
to  seek  an  explanation  of  an  eclipse  of  the  sun,  or 
of  an  earthquake.  But  a  moment  comes — only 
we  cannot  define  it  exactly — when  explanations 
lose  all  meaning  and  are  good  for  nothing  any 


1G4     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

more.  It  is  as  though  we  were  led  by  a  rope — 
the  law  of  sufficient  reason — to  a  certain  place 
and  left  there  ;  '  Now  go  wherever  you  like.' 
And  since  we  have  grown  so  used  to  the  rope  in 
our  lives,  we  begin  to  believe  that  it  is  part  of  the 
very  essence  of  the  world.  One  of  the  most 
remarkable  thinkers,  Spinoza,  thought  that  God 
himself  was  bound  by  necessity. 

Let  any  one  probe  himself  carefully,  and  he 
will  find  that  he  is  not  merely  unable  to  think 
but  almost  unable  to  live  without  the  hypothesis 
of  Spinoza.  The  work  of  Hume,  who  so  bril- 
liantly disputed  the  axiom  of  causal  necessity, 
was  only  half  done.  He  clearly  showed  that  it  is 
impossible  to  prove  the  existence  of  necessary 
connection.  But  it  is  also  impossible  to  prove 
the  contrary.  In  the  result,  everything  re- 
mained as  before  :  Kant,  and  all  mankind  after 
him,  has  returned  to  Spinoza's  position.  Free- 
dom has  been  driven  into  an  intellectual  world, 
an  unknown  land, 

'  from  whose  bourne 
No  traveller  returns/ 

and  everything  is  in  its  former  place.  Philo- 
sophy wants  to  be  a  science  at  all  costs.  It  is 
absolutely  impossible  for  her  to  succeed  in  this  ; 
but  the  price  she  has  paid  for  the  right  to  be 
called  a  science,  is  not  returned  to  her.  She  has 
waived  the  right  of  seeking  that  which  she 
needed  wherever  she  would,  and  she  is  deprived 
of  the  right  for  ever.     But  did  she  really  need  it  ? 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  165 

If  you  glance  at  contemporary  German  philo- 
sophy you  will  say  without  hesitation  that  it  was 
not  needed  at  all.  Neither  by  mistake,  nor  even  in 
pursuit  of  a  new  title,  did  she  renounce  her  great 
vocation  :  it  has  become  an  intolerable  burden 
to  her.  However  hard  it  may  be  to  confess,  it  is 
nevertheless  indubitable  that  the  great  secrets 
of  the  universe  cannot  be  manifested  with  the 
clarity  and  distinctness  with  which  the  visible 
and  tangible  world  is  opened  to  us.  Not  only 
others — you  will  not  even  convince  yourself  of 
your  truth  with  the  obviousness  with  which  you 
can  convince  all  men  without  exception  of  scien- 
tific truths. 

Revelations,  if  they  do  occur,  are  always 
revelations  for  an  instant.  Mahomet — Dos- 
toevsky  explains — could  only  stay  in  paradise 
a  very  short  time,  from  half  a  second  to  five 
seconds,  even  if  he  succeeded  in  falling  into  it. 
And  Dostoevsky  himself  entered  paradise  only 
for  an  instant.  And  here  on  earth,  both  of 
them  lived  for  years,  for  tens  of  years,  and  there 
seemed  to  be  no  end  to  the  hell  of  earthly  exist- 
ence. The  hell  was  obvious,  demonstrable  ;  it 
could  be  fixed,  exhibited,  ad  ocidos.  But  how 
could  paradise  be  proven  ?  How  could  one  fix, 
how  express,  those  half-seconds  of  paradisic 
beatitude,  which  were  from  the  outside  mani- 
fested in  ugly  and  horrible  epileptic  fits  with 
convulsions,  paroxysms,  a  foaming  mouth,  and 
sometimes  an  ill-omened  sudden  fall,  with  the 
spilling  of  blood  ?    Again,  believe,  if  you  will :  if 


166     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

you  won't,  don't.  Surely  a  man  who  lives  now  in 
paradise,  now  in  hell  sees  life  utterly  differently 
from  others.  And  he  wants  to  think  that  he  is 
right,  that  his  experience  is  of  great  value,  that 
life  is  not  at  all  as  it  is  described  by  men  of 
different  experience  and  more  limited  emotions. 
How  desperately  did  Dostoevsky  desire  to  per- 
suade all  men  of  his  rightness,  how  stubbornly 
he  used  to  demonstrate,  and  how  angry  he  was 
made  by  the  consciousness  that  lived  in  the 
depths  of  his  soul  that  he  was  impotent  to  prove 
anything.  But  a  fact  remains  a  fact.  Perhaps 
epileptics  and  madmen  know  things  of  which 
normal  men  have  not  even  the  remotest  presenti- 
ment, but  it  is  not  vouchsafed  to  them  to  com- 
municate their  knowledge  to  others,  or  to  prove 
it.  And  there  is  a  universal  knowledge  which  is 
the  very  object  of  philosophical  seeking,  with 
which  one  may  commune,  but  which  by  its 
very  essence  cannot  be  communicated  to  all, 
that  is,  cannot  be  turned  into  verified  and 
demonstrable  universal  truths.  To  renounce 
this  knowledge  in  order  that  philosophy  should 
have  the  right  to  be  called  a  science  !  At  times 
men  acted  thus.  There  were  sober  epochs  when 
the  pursuit  of  positive  knowledge  absorbed  every 
one  capable  of  intellectual  labour.  Or  perhaps 
there  were  epochs  in  which  men  who  sought 
something  other  than  positive  science  were  con- 
demned to  universal  contempt,  and  passed  un- 
regarded :  in  such  an  epoch  Plato  would  have 
found  no  sympathy,  but  would  have  died  in 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE     167 

obscurity.  One  thing  at  least  is  clear.  He 
whose  chief  interest  and  motive  in  life  is  in  un- 
demonstrable  truths  is  doomed  to  complete  or 
relative  sterility  in  the  sense  in  which  the  word  is 
generally  understood.  If  he  is  clever  and  gifted, 
men  may  perhaps  be  interested  in  his  mind  and 
talent,  but  they  will  pass  his  work  with  in- 
difference, contempt,  and  even  horror ;  and 
they  will  begin  to  warn  the  world  against  him. 

'  Look  at  him,  my  children, 

He  is  stern  and  pale  and  lean. 
He  is  poor  and  naked, 

And  all  men  count  him  mean.' 

Has  not  the  work  of  the  prophets  who  sought 
for  ultimate  truths  been  barren  and  useless  ? 
Did  life  hold  them  in  any  account  ?  Life  went 
its  own  way,  and  the  voices  of  the  prophets  have 
been,  are,  and  ever  will  be,  voices  in  the  vdlder- 
ness.  For  that  which  they  see  and  know,  can- 
not be  proved  and  is  not  capable  of  proof. 
Prophets  have  always  been  isolated,  dissevered, 
separate,  helpless  men,  locked  up  in  their  pride. 
Prophets  are  kings  without  an  army.  For  all 
their  love  to  their  subjects,  they  can  do  nothing 
for  them,  for  subjects  respect  only  those  kings 
who  possess  a  formidable  military  power.  And 
— long  may  it  be  so  ! 

The  Limits  of  Reality 

After  all,  not  even  the  most  consistent  and 
convinced  realist  represents  life  to  himself  as  it 


168      THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

really  is.  He  overlooks  a  great  deal ;  and  on 
the  other  hand  he  often  sees  something  which 
has  no  existence  in  reality.  I  do  not  think  there 
is  any  need  to  show  this  by  example.  For  all 
our  desire  to  be  objective  we  are,  after  all,  ex- 
tremely subjective,  and  those  things  which  Kant 
calls  synthetic  judgments  a  yriori,  by  which  our 
mind  forms  nature  and  dictates  laws  to  her,  do 
play  a  great  and  serious  part  in  our  lives.  We 
create  something  like  the  veil  of  Maia  :  we  are 
awake  in  sleep,  and  sleep  in  wakefulness,  exactly 
as  though  some  magic  power  had  charmed  us. 
And  just  as  in  sleep  we  feel  for  instants  that 
what  is  happening  to  us  is  like  a  half-dream,  an 
intermediate  half-life.  Schopenhauer  and  the 
Buddhists  were  right  in  asserting  that  it  is  equally 
wrong  to  say  of  the  veil  of  Maia,  the  world  ac- 
cessible to  us,  either  that  it  exists  or  does  not 
exist.  It  is  true  that  logic  does  not  admit  such 
judgments  and  persecutes  them  most  impla- 
cably, for  they  violate  its  most  fundamental 
laws.  But  it  cannot  be  helped  :  when  one  has 
to  choose  between  philosophy  which  is  alluring 
and  promising,  and  empty  logic,  one  will  always 
sacrifice  the  latter  for  the  former.  And  philo- 
sophy without  contradictory  judgments  would 
be  either  doomed  to  eternal  silence,  or  would  be 
churned  into  a  mud  of  commonplace  and  reduced 
to  nothing.  Philosophers  know  that.  The  same 
is  true  of  our  own  case  :  we  must  confess  that 
we  are  at  the  same  time  awake  and  dreaming 
dreams,  and  at  times  we  must  own  that  though 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE     169 

we  are  alive,  yet  we  have  long  since  been  dead. 
As  living  beings  we  still  hold  to  the  accepted 
synthetic  judgments  a  priori,  and  as  dead,  we 
try  to  do  without  them,  or  to  replace  them  by 
other  judgments  which  have  nothing  in  common 
with  the  former  but  are  even  opposite  to  them. 
Philosophy  is  occupied  in  this  work  with  extreme 
diligence,  and  in  this  and  this  alone  is  the  meaning 
of  the  idealistic  movement  which  has  never, 
since  the  time  of  Plato,  disappeared  from  his- 
tory. The  problem  is  not  for  us  to  find  another, 
primordial,  better,  and  eternal  world  to  replace 
the  visible  world  accessible  to  all,  as  idealistic 
philosophy  is  usually  interpreted  by  her  official 
and,  unfortunately,  her  most  influential  repre- 
sentatives. Interpretation  of  that  kind  too 
obviously  bears  the  mark  of  its  empiric  utili- 
tarian origin  :  they  bring  us  as  near  to  super- 
emiiiric  reality  as  do  the  notions  wherewith  we 
define  what  is  valuable  in  life.  We  might  as 
well  consider  the  super-empiric  world  as  one  of 
gold,  diamond,  or  pearls  simply  because  gold, 
diamonds,  and  pearls  are  very  costly.  But  so  it 
usually  happens.  God  himself  is  usually  repre- 
sented as  glimmering  with  gold  and  precious 
stones,  as  omniscient  and  omnipotent.  He  is 
called  the  King  of  Kings  since  on  earth  the  lot 
of  a  crowned  head  is  considered  most  enviable. 
The  meaning  and  value  of  idealistic  philosojihy 
thus  appears  to  be  that  she  for  ever  ratifies  all 
that  we  have  found  valuable  on  earth  during  our 
brief  existence.     Herein,  I  believe,  is  a  fatal 


170     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

error.  Idealistic  philosophy,  it  is  true,  gave  an 
excuse  for  falsely  interpreting  her,  since  she 
loved  to  be  arrayed  in  sumptuous  apparel. 
The  religion  of  almost  all  nations  has  always 
sought  for  forms  outwardly  beautiful  without 
stopping  even  before  such  an  obvious  paradox — 
not  to  put  it  more  strongly — as  a  golden  cross 
studded  with  diamonds.  And  for  the  sake  of 
sumptuous  words  and  golden  crosses  men  over- 
looked great  truths,  and  perhaps  great  possi- 
bilities. The  philosophy  of  the  schools  also 
loved  to  array  herself,  so  that  she  should  not  be 
behind  the  masters  in  this  respect,  and  for  the 
sake  of  dress  she  often  forgot  her  necessary  work. 
Plato  taught  that  our  life  was  only  a  shadow  of 
another  reality.  If  this  is  true,  and  he  dis- 
covered the  truth,  then  surely  our  first  task  is  to 
begin  to  live  a  different  life,  to  turn  our  back  to 
the  wall  above  which  the  shadows  are  walking 
and  to  turn  our  face  to  the  source  of  light  which 
created  the  shadows  or  to  those  things  of  which 
the  visible  outlines  give  only  a  remote  resem- 
blance. We  must  be  awakened,  if  only  in  part ; 
to  this  end  what  is  usually  done  to  a  person  sound 
asleep  must  be  done  to  us.  He  is  pulled,  pinched, 
beaten,  tickled,  and  if  all  these  things  fail,  still 
stronger  and  more  heroic  measures  must  be 
applied.  At  all  events,  it  is  out  of  the  question 
to  advise  contemplation,  which  may  well  make 
one  still  sleepier,  or  quietude,  which  leads  to  the 
same  result.  Philosophy  should  live  by  sar- 
casm, irony,  alarm,  struggles,  despairs,  and  allow 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE     171 

herself  contemplation  and  quietude  only  from 
time  to  time,  as  a  relaxation.  Then  perhaps  she 
will  succeed  in  creating,  by  the  side  of  realistic 
dreams,  dreams  of  a  quite  different  order,  and 
visibly  demonstrate  that  the  universally  accepted 
dreams  are  not  the  only  ones.  '  What  is  the 
use  ?  '  I  do  not  think  this  question  need  be 
answered.  He  who  asks  it,  shows  by  the  fact 
that  he  needs  neither  an  answer  nor  philosophy, 
while  he  who  needs  them  will  not  ask  but  will 
patiently  await  events  :  a  temperature  of  120°, 
an  epileptic  fit,  or  something  of  this  kind,  which 
facilitates  the  difficult  task  of  seeking.  .  .  . 

The  Given  and  the  Possible 

The  law  of  causation  as  a  principle  of  inquiry 
is  an  excellent  thing  t  the  existing  sciences  afford 
us  convincing  evidence  of  that.  But  as  an  idea 
in  the  Platonic  sense  it  is  of  little  value,  at  times 
at  least.  The  strict  harmony  and  order  of  the 
world  have  fascinated  many  people  :  such  giants 
of  thought  as  Spinoza  and  Goethe  paused  with 
reverent  wonder  in  contemplation  of  the  great 
and  unchangeable  order  of  nature.  Therefore 
they  exalted  necessity  even  to  the  rank  of  a 
primordial,  eternal,  original  principle.  And  we 
must  confess  that  Goethe's  and  Spinoza's  con- 
ception of  the  world  lives  so  much  in  each  one  of 
us  that  in  most  cases  we  can  love  and  respect  the 
world  only  when  our  souls  feel  in  it  a  symmetrical 
harmony.    Harmony  seems  to  us  at  once  the 


172     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

highest  value  and  the  ultimate  truth.  It  gives 
to  the  soul  great  peace,  a  stable  firmness,  a  trust 
in  the  Creator — the  highest  boons  accessible  to 
mortal  men,  as  the  philosophers  teach.  Never- 
theless, there  are  other  yearnings.  Man's  heart 
is  suddenly  possessed  by  a  longing  for  the  fan- 
tastic, the  unforeseen,  for  that  which  cannot  be 
foreseen.  The  beautiful  world  loves  its  beauty, 
peace  of  soul  seems  disgraceful,  stability  is  felt 
as  an  intolerable  burden.  Just  as  a  youth  grown 
to  manhood  suddenly  feels  irritated  by  the 
bountiful  tutelage  of  his  parents,  from  which  he 
has  received  so  much,  though  he  does  not  know 
what  to  do  with  his  freedom,  so  is  a  man  of  in- 
sight ashamed  of  the  happiness  which  is  given  to 
him,  which  some  one  has  created.  The  law  of 
causation,  like  the  whole  harmony  of  the  world, 
seems  to  him  a  pleasant  gift,  facilitating  life,  but 
yet  a  degrading  one.  He  has  sold  his  birthright 
for  peace,  for  undisturbed  happiness — his  great 
birthright  of  free  creation.  He  does  not  under- 
stand how  a  giant  like  Goethe  could  have  been 
seduced  by  the  temptation  of  a  pleasant  life,  he 
suspects  the  sincerity  of  Spinoza.  There  is  some- 
thing rotten  in  the  state  of  Denmark.  The 
apple  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  of  good  and  evil, 
has  become  to  him  the  sole  purpose  of  life,  even 
though  the  path  to  it  should  lie  through  extreme 
suffering. 

And,  strangely,  nature  herself  seems  to  be  pre- 
occujiied  in  urging  man  to  that  fatal  path. 
There  comes  a  time  in  our  life  when  some  impera- 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  173 

tive  and  secret  voice  forbids  us  to  rejoice  at  the 
beauty  and  grandeur  of  the  world.  The  world 
allures  us  as  before,  but  it  no  longer  gives  pure 
happiness.  Remember  Tchekhov.  How  he 
loved  nature  !  What  immeasurable  yearning  is 
audible  in  his  wonderful  descriptions  of  nature  ! 
Just  as  though  each  time  that  he  glanced  at  the 
blue  sky,  the  troubled  sea  or  the  green  woods,  a 
voice  of  authority  whispered  to  him  :  '  All  this 
is  yours  no  longer.  You  may  look  at  it,  but  you 
have  no  right  to  rejoice.  Prepare  yourself  for 
another  life,  where  nothing  will  be  given,  com- 
plete, prepared,  where  nothing  will  be  created, 
where  there  will  be  illimitable  creation  alone. 
And  everything  which  is  in  this  world  shall  be 
given  to  destruction,  to  destruction  and  destruc- 
tion, even  this  nature  which  you  so  passionately 
love,  and  which  it  is  so  hard  and  painful  for  you 
to  renounce.'  Everything  drives  us  to  the 
mysterious  realm  of  the  eternally  fantastic, 
eternally  chaotic,  and — who  knows  ? — it  may 
be,  the  eternally  beautiful.  .  .  . 

Experiment  and  Proof 

When  cogito  ergo  sum  came  into  Descartes' 
head,  he  marked  the  day — November  10,  1619 
— as  a  remarkable  day :  '  The  light  of  a  wonder- 
ful discovery,'  he  wrote  in  his  diary,  'flashed 
into  my  mind.'  Schelling  relates  the  same  thing 
of  himself:  in  the  year  1801  he  '  saw  the  light.' 
And  to  Nietzsche  when  he  roamed  the  mountains 


174     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

and  the  valleys  of  the  Engadine  there  came  a 
mighty  change :  he  grasped  the  doctrine  of 
eternal  recurrence.  One  might  name  many 
philosophers,  poets,  artists,  preachers,  who  like 
these  three  suddenly  saw  the  light,  and  con- 
sidered their  vision  the  beginning  of  a  new  life. 
It  is  even  probable  that  all  men  who  have  been 
destined  to  display  to  the  world  something  per- 
fectly new  and  original  have  without  exception 
experienced  that  miracle  of  sudden  metamor- 
phosis. Nevertheless,  though  much  is  spoken  of 
these  miracles  and  often,  in  nearly  all  biographies 
of  great  men,  we  cannot  strictly  make  any  use 
of  them.  Descartes,  Schelling,  Nietzsche  tell  the 
story  of  their  conversion  ;  and  with  us,  Tolstoi 
and  Dostoevsky  tell  of  theirs  ;  in  the  less  re- 
mote past,  there  are  Mahomet  and  Paul  the 
Apostle ;  in  far  antiquity  the  legend  of  Moses. 
But  if  I  had  chosen  tenfold  the  number,  if 
thousands  even  had  been  collected,  it  would  still 
be  impossible  for  the  mind  to  make  any  deduc- 
tion from  them.  In  other  words,  all  these  cases 
have  no  value  as  scientific  material,  whereas 
one  fossil  skeleton  or  a  unique  case  of  an  un- 
known rare  disease  is  a  precious  windfall  to  the 
scientist.  What  is  still  more  interesting,  Des- 
cartes was  so  struck  with  his  cogito  ergo  sum, 
Nietzsche  with  his  eternal  recurrence,  Mahomet 
with  his  paradise,  Paul  the  Apostle  with  his 
vision,  while  we  remain  more  or  less  indifferent 
to  anything  they  may  relate  of  their  experiences. 
Only  the  most  sensitive  among  us  have  an  ear 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE     175 

for  stories  of  that  kind,  and  even  they  are 
obliged  to  hide  their  impressions  within  them, 
for  what  can  be  done  with  them  ? 

It  is  even  impossible  to  fix  them  as  indubitable 
facts,  for  facts  also  require  a  verification  and 
must  be  proved.  There  are  no  proofs.  Philo- 
sophic and  religious  teachings  offered  by  men 
who  have  had  extraordinary  inward  experiences, 
not  only  do  not  generally  confirm,  but  rather 
refute  their  own  stories  of  revelation.  For 
philosophic  and  religious  teaching  have  always 
hitherto  assigned  themselves  the  task  of  attract- 
ing all  and  sundry  to  themselves,  and  in  order 
to  attain  this  end  they  had  to  have  recourse  to 
such  methods  as  have  effect  with  the  ordinary 
man,  who  knows  of  nothing  extraordinary — to 
proof,  to  the  authority  of  visible  and  tangible 
phenomena,  which  can  be  measured,  weighed 
and  counted.  In  their  pursuit  of  proofs,  of 
persuasiveness  and  popularity,  they  had  to 
sacrifice  the  important  and  essential,  and  expose 
for  show  that  which  is  agreeable  to  reason — 
things  already  more  or  less  known,  and  there- 
fore of  little  interest  and  importance.  In  course 
of  time,  as  experimental  science,  so-called,  gained 
more  and  more  power,  the  habit  of  hiding  in 
oneself  all  that  cannot  be  demonstrated  ad 
oculos,  has  become  more  and  more  firmly  rooted, 
until  it  is  almost  man's  second  nature.  Nowa- 
days we  '  naturally  '  share  but  a  small  part  of  an 
experience  with  our  friends,  so  that  if  Mahomet 
and  Paul  lived  in  our  time,  it  would  not  enter 


176     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

their  heads  to  tell  their  extraordinary  stories. 
And  for  all  his  bravery,  Nietzsche  nevertheless 
passes  quickly  over  eternal  recurrence,  and  is 
much  more  occupied  with  preaching  the  morality 
of  the  Superman,  which,  though  it  at  first 
astounded  people,  was  after  all  accepted  with 
more  or  less  modification,  because  it  was  demon- 
strable. Evidently  we  are  confronted  with  a 
great  dilemma.  If  we  continue  to  cultivate 
modern  methodology,  we  run  the  risk  of  becom- 
ing so  accustomed  to  it  that  we  will  lose  not 
only  the  faculty  of  sharing  all  undemonstrable 
and  exceptional  experiences  with  others,  but 
even  of  retaining  them  firmly  in  the  memory. 
They  will  begin  to  be  forgotten  as  dreams,  they 
will  even  seem  to  be  waking  dreams.  Thus  we 
will  cut  ourselves  off  for  ever  from  a  vast  realm 
of  reality,  whose  meaning  and  value  have  by  no 
means  been  divined  or  appreciated.  In  olden 
times  men  could  add  dreams  and  madmen's 
visions  to  reality  ;  but  we  shall  curtail  the  real 
indubitable  reality,  transferring  it  to  the  realm 
of  hallucinations  and  dreams.  I  suppose  even 
a  modern  man  will  feel  some  hesitation  in 
coming  over  to  the  side  of  this  methodology, 
even  though  he  is  incapable  of  thinking,  with 
the  ancients,  that  dreams  are  by  no  means 
worthless  things.  And  if  this  is  so,  then  the 
rights  of  experiences  must  not  be  defined  by  the 
degree  of  their  demonstrability.  However 
capricious  our  experiences  may  be,  however 
little  they  agree  with  the  rooted  and  predominant 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  177 

conceptions  of  the  necessary  character  of  events 
in  the  inward  and  outward  Hfe — once  they  have 
taken  place  in  the  soul  of  man,  they  acquire, 
ipso  facto,  the  lawful  right  of  figuring  side  by  side 
with  facts  which  are  most  demonstrable  and 
susceptible  of  control  and  verification,  and  even 
with  a  deliberate  experiment. 

It  may  be  said  that  we  would  not  then  be 
protected  against  deliberate  frauds.  People  who 
have  never  been  in  paradise  will  give  themselves 
out  for  Mahomets.  That  is  true  ;  they  will 
talk  and  they  will  lie.  There  will  be  no  method 
of  objective  verification.  But  they  will  surely 
tell  the  truth  also.  For  the  sake  of  that  truth 
we  may  make  up  our  minds  to  swim  through  a 
whole  ocean  of  lies.  Yes,  it  is  not  in  the  least 
impossible  to  distinguish  truth  from  lie  in  this 
realm,  though,  certainly,  not  by  the  signs  which 
have  been  evolved  by  logic ;  and  not  even  by 
signs,  but  by  no  signs  at  all.  The  signs  of  the 
beautiful  have  not  yet  been  even  approximately 
defined,  and,  please  God — be  it  said  without 
offence  to  the  Germans — they  never  will  be 
defined,  but  yet  we  distinguish  between  Apollo 
and  Venus.  So  it  is  with  truth  :  she  too  may 
be  recognised.  But  what  if  a  man  cannot  dis- 
tinguish without  signs,  and,  moreover,  does  not 
want  to  ?  .  .  .  What  is  to  be  done  with  him  ? 
Really,  I  do  not  know ;  besides,  I  do  not  imagine 
that  all  men  down  to  the  last  should  act  in 
unison.  When  did  all  men  act  in  agreement  ? 
Men  have  mostly  acted  separately,  meeting  in 

M 


178     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

certain  places,  and  parting  in  others.  Long  may 
it  be  so  !  Some  will  recognise  and  seek  after 
truth  by  signs,  others  without  signs,  as  they 
please,  and  yet  others,  in  both  ways. 

The  Seventh  Day  of  Creation 

Socrates  said  that  he  often  used  to  hear  from 
poets  thoughts  remarkable  for  their  profundity 
and  seriousness,  but  when  he  began  to  inquire 
of  them  more  particularly,  he  became  convinced 
that  they  themselves  did  not  understand  what 
they  were  saying.  What  did  he  really  mean  ? 
Did  Socrates  wish  to  compare  the  poets  to 
parrots  or  trained  blackbirds  who  can  learn  by 
heart,  with  the  assistance  of  a  man  to  teach 
them,  any  ideas  whatever,  perfectly  foreign  to 
them.  That  can  hardly  be.  Socrates  hardly 
thought  that  what  the  poets  say  had  been  over- 
heard by  them  from  some  one,  and  mechanically 
fixed  in  their  mind,  though  it  remained  quite 
foreign  to  their  soul.  Most  probably  he  used  the 
word  '  understand '  in  the  sense  that  they  could 
not  demonstrate  or  explain  the  soundness  and 
stability  of  their  ideas, — they  could  not  deduce 
them  and  relate  them  to  a  definite  conception 
of  the  world.  As  every  one  knows,  Socrates 
thought  that  not  merely  poets,  but  all  men, 
from  eminent  statesmen  down  to  ignorant 
artisans,  had  ideas,  even  a  great  many  ideas, 
but  they  never  could  explain  where  they  had 
got  them,  or  make  them  agree  among  themselves. 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  179 

In  this  respect  poets  were  the  same  as  the 
rest  of  people.  From  some  mysterious  source 
they  had  acquired  truths,  often  great  and  pro- 
found, but  they  were  unable  to  explain  them. 
This  seemed  to  Socrates  a  great  misery,  a  real 
misfortune.  I  do  not  know  how  it  happened — 
not  a  single  historian  of  philosophy  has  explained 
itj  and  indeed  very  little  interest  has  been  taken 
in  it — but  Socrates  for  some  reason  decided  that 
an  unproven  and  unexplained  truth  had  less 
value  than  a  proven  and  explained  one.  In  our 
times,  when  a  whole  theory,  even  a  conception 
of  the  world,  has  been  made  of  Socrates's  idea, 
this  notion  seems  so  natural  and  self-evident 
that  no  one  doubts  it.  But  in  antiquity  the  case 
was  different.  Strictly,  Socrates  thought  that 
the  poets  had  acquired  their  truths,  which  they 
were  unable  to  prove,  from  a  very  respectable 
source,  which  deserved  all  possible  confidence  : 
he  himself  compared  the  poets  with  oracles,  and 
consequently  admitted  that  they  had  com- 
munion with  the  gods.  There  was,  therefore, 
a  most  excellent  guarantee  that  the  poets  were 
possessed  of  real,  undiluted  truth — the  pledge  of 
its  purity  being  the  divine  authority.  Socrates 
said  that  he  himself  had  frequently  been  guided 
in  his  actions,  not  by  considerations  of 
reason,  but  by  the  voice  of  his  mysterious 
'  demon.'  That  is,  at  times,  he  abstained 
from  certain  actions — his  demon  gave  him 
never  positive,  but  only  negative  advice — 
without  being  able  to  produce  reasons,  simply 


180     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

because  the  secret  voice,  more  authoritative 
than  any  human  mind,  demanded  abstinence 
from  them. 

Is  it  not  strange  that  under  such  circumstances, 
at  an  epoch  when  the  gods  vouchsafed  truths 
to  men,  there  should  have  suddenly  appeared 
in  a  man  the  unexplained  desire  to  acquire 
truths  without  the  help  of  the  gods,  and  in  in- 
dependence of  them,  by  the  dialectic  method  so 
beloved  of  the  Greeks  ?  It  is  doubtful  which 
is  more  important  for  us,  to  acquire  the  truth 
or  to  acquire  for  one's  self  with  one's  own  effort, 
it  may  be  a  false,  but  one's  own  judgment.  The 
example  of  Socrates,  who  has  been  a  pattern 
for  all  subsequent  generations  of  thinking  men, 
leaves  not  the  slightest  doubt.  Men  do  not 
need  a  truth  ready  made  ;  they  turn  away  from 
the  gods  to  devote  themselves  to  independent 
creations.  Practically  the  same  story  is  told 
in  the  Bible.  What  indeed  was  lacking  to 
Adam  ?  He  lived  in  paradise,  in  direct  prox- 
imity to  God,  from  whom  he  could  learn  any- 
thing he  wanted.  And  yet  it  did  not  suit  him. 
It  was  enough  that  the  Serpent  should  make  his 
perfidious  proposal  for  the  man  to  forget  the 
wrath  of  God,  and  all  the  dangers  which  threat- 
ened him,  and  to  pluck  the  apple  from  the 
forbidden  tree.  Then  the  truth,  which  until  the 
creation  of  the  world  and  man  had  been  one, 
split  and  broke  with  a  great,  perhaps  an  in- 
finitely great,  number  of  most  diverse  truths, 
eternally  being  born,  and  eternally  dying.   This 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNO^VLEDGE     181 

was  the  seventh  day  of  creation,  unrecorded 
in  history.  Man  became  God's  collaborator. 
He  himself  became  a  creator.  Socrates  re- 
nounced the  divine  truth  and  even  spoke  con- 
temptuously of  it,  merely  because  it  was  not 
proven,  that  is,  because  it  does  not  bear  the 
marks  of  man's  handiwork.  Socrates  really  did 
not  prove  anything,  but  he  was  proving,  creat- 
ing, and  in  this  he  saw  the  meaning  of  his  own 
life  and  of  all  human  lives.  Thus,  surely,  the 
pronouncement  of  _the  Delphic  oracle  seems 
true  even  now  :  Socrates  was  the  wisest  of  men. 
And  he  who  would  be  wise  must,  imitating 
Socrates,  not  be  like  him  in  anything.  Thus 
did  all  great  men,  and  all  great  philosophers. 

What  does  the  History  of  Philosophy  teach  us  ? 

Neo-Kantianism  is  the  prevalent  school  of 
modern  philosophy.  The  literature  about  Kant 
has  grown  to  unheard-of  proportions.  But  if 
you  attempt  to  analyse  the  colossal  mass  that 
has  been  written  upon  Kant,  and  put  the  ques- 
tion to  yourself,  what  has  really  been  left  to  us 
of  Kant's  teaching,  then  to  your  great  amaze- 
ment you  will  have  to  reply  :  Nothing  at  all. 
There  is  an  extraordinary,  incredibly  famous 
name — Kant,  and  there  is  positively  not  a  single 
Kantian  thesis  which  in  an  uninterpreted  form 
would  have  survived  till  our  day.  I  say  in  an 
uninterpreted  form,  for  interpretations  resolve 
at  bottom  into  arbitrary  recastings,  which  often 


182     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

have  not  even  an  outward  resemblance  to  the 
original.  These  interpretations  began  while 
Kant  was  still  alive.  Fichte  gave  the  first 
example.  It  is  well  known  that  Kant  reacted, 
demanding  that  his  teaching  should  be  under- 
stood not  in  the  spirit  but  in  the  letter.  And 
Kant  was,  naturally,  quite  right.  Of  two  things 
one  :  either  you  take  his  teaching  as  it  is,  or  you 
invent  your  own.  But  the  fate  of  all  thinkers 
who  have  been  destined  to  give  their  names  to 
an  epoch  is  similar  :  they  have  been  interpreted, 
recast,  till  they  are  unrecognisable.  For  after 
a  short  time  had  elapsed,  it  became  clear  that 
their  ideas  were  so  overburdened  with  contra- 
dictions, that  in  the  form  in  which  they  emerged 
from  the  hands  of  their  creators,  they  are  abso- 
lutely unacceptable.  Indeed,  all  the  critics  who 
had  not  made  up  their  minds  beforehand  to  be 
orthodox  Kantians,  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
Kant  had  not  proved  a  single  one  of  his  funda- 
mental propositions.  Something  stronger  may 
be  said.  By  virtue  of  the  fact  that  Kant,  owing 
to  the  central  position  which  he  occupied, 
attracted  much  attention  to  himself  and  was 
forced  to  submit  to  very  careful  criticism,  there 
gradually  emerged  a  truth  which  might  have 
been  known  beforehand  :  that  Kant's  teaching 
is  a  mass  of  contradictions.  The  sum-total  of 
more  than  a  century's  study  of  Kant  may  be 
resumed  in  a  few  words.  Although  he  was  not 
afraid  of  the  most  crying  contradictions,  he  did 
not  have  the  smallest  degree  of  success  in  proving 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE     183 

the  correctness  of  his  teaching.  With  an  extra- 
ordinary power  and  depth  of  mind,  with  all  the 
originality,  boldness,  and  talent  of  his  construc- 
tions, he  really  provided  nothing  that  might 
be  indisputably  called  a  positive  acquisition  of 
philosophy.  I  repeat  that  I  am  not  expressing 
my  own  opinion.  I  am  only  reckoning  the  sum- 
total  of  the  opinions  of  the  German  critics  of 
Kant,  of  those  same  critics  who  built  him  a 
monument  aere  perennius. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  all  the  great  repre- 
sentatives of  philosophic  thought  beginning  with 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  and  ending  with  Hegel, 
Schopenhauer  and  Nietzsche.  Their  works  as- 
tonish by  their  power,  depth,  boldness,  beauty 
and  originality  of  thought.  While  you  read 
them  it  seems  that  truth  herself  speaks  with 
their  lips.  And  what  strong  measures  of  pre- 
caution did  they  take  to  prevent  themselves 
from  being  mistaken  !  They  believed  in  nothing 
that  men  had  grown  accustomed  to  believe. 
They  methodically  doubted  everything,  re- 
examined everything,  tens,  hundreds  of  times. 
They  gave  their  life  to  the  truth  not  in  words, 
but  in  deed.  And  still  the  sum-total  is  the 
same  in  their  case  as  in  Kant's  :  not  one  of 
them  succeeded  in  inventing  a  system  free  from 
internal  contradictions. 

Aristotle  was  already  criticising  Plato,  and 
the  sceptics  criticised  both  of  them,  and  so  on 
until  in  our  day  each  new  thinker  struggles  with 
his    predecessors,    refutes    their    contradictions 


184     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

and  errors,  although  he  knows  that  he  is  doomed 
to  the  same  fate.  The  historians  of  philo- 
sophy are  at  infinite  pains  to  conceal  the  most 
glaring  and  noticeable  trait  of  philosophic  crea- 
tion, which  is,  at  bottom,  no  secret  to  any  one. 
The  uninitiated,  and  people  generally  who  do 
not  like  thinking,  and  therefore  wish  to  be  con- 
temptuous of  philosophy,  point  to  the  lack  of 
unity  among  philosophers  as  evidence  that  it  is 
not  worth  while  to  study  philosophy.  But  they 
are  both  wrong.  The  history  of  philosophy  not 
onl}^  does  not  inspire  us  with  the  thought  of  the 
continual  evolution  of  an  idea,  but  palpably 
convinces  us  of  the  contrary,  that  among  phil- 
osophers there  is  not,  has  not  been,  and  will 
never  be,  any  aspiration  towards  unity.  Neither 
will  they  find  in  future  a  truth  free  from  con- 
tradiction, for  they  do  not  seek  the  truth  in  the 
sense  in  which  the  word  is  understood  by  the 
people  and  by  science ;  and,  after  all,  contradic- 
tions do  not  frighten  them,  but  rather  attract. 
Schopenhauer  begins  his  criticism  of  Kant's 
philosophy  with  the  words  of  Voltaire :  '  It  is 
the  privilege  of  genius  to  make  great  mistakes 
with  impunity.'  I  believe  that  the  secret  of  the 
philosophic  genius  lies  here.  He  makes  great, 
the  greatest,  mistakes,  and  with  impunity. 
Moreover  his  mistakes  are  put  to  his  credit,  for 
the  important  matter  is  not  his  truths,  or  his 
judgments,  but  himself.  When  you  hear  from 
Plato  that  the  life  we  see  is  only  a  shadow,  when 
Spinoza,  intoxicated  by  God,  exalts  the  idea  of 
necessity,  when  Kant  declares  that  reason  die- 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE     185 

tates  laws  to  Nature, — listening  to  them  you  do 
not  examine  whether  their  assertions  are  true 
or  not,  you  agree  with  each  of  them,  whatever 
he  says,  and  only  this  question  arises  in  your 
soul :  '  Who  is  he  that  speaketh  as  one  having 
authority  ? ' 

Later  on,  you  will  reject  all  their  truths,  with 
horror,  perhaps  with  indignation  and  disgust, 
even  with  utter  indifference.  You  will  not  con- 
sent to  accept  that  our  life  is  only  a  shadow  of 
actual  reality,  you  will  revolt  against  Spinoza's 
God,  who  cannot  love,  yet  demands  love  for 
himself,  Kant's  categorical  imperative  will  seem 
to  you  a  cold  monster, — but  you  will  never 
forget  Plato,  or  Spinoza,  or  Kant,  and  will  for 
ever  keep  your  gratitude  to  them,  who  made 
you  believe  that  authority  is  given  to  mortals. 
Then  you  will  understand  that  there  are  no 
errors  and  no  truths  in  philosophy  ;  that  errors 
and  truths  arc  only  for  him  above  whom  is  set 
a  superior  authority,  a  law,  a  standard.  But 
philosophers  themselves  create  laws  and  stan- 
dards. This  is  what  we  are  taught  by  the 
history  of  philosophy  ;  this  is  what  is  most 
difficult  for  man  to  master  and  understand.  I 
have  already  said  that  the  historians  of  philo- 
sophy draw  quite  a  different  moral  from  the 
study  of  the  great  human  creations. 

Science  and  Metaphysics 

In  his  autobiography  Spencer  confesses  that 
he  had  really  never  read  Kant.     He  had  had 


186     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

The  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  in  his  hands,  and 
had  even  read  the  beginning,  the  Transcendental 
Aesthetic,  but  the  beginning  convinced  him  it 
was  no  use  for  him  to  read  further.  Once  a 
man  had  made  the  unconvincing  admission 
which  Kant  had  made,  by  accepting  the  subjec- 
tivity of  one  form  of  perception,  of  space  and 
time,  he  could  not  be  seriously  taken  into 
account.  If  he  is  consistent,  all  his  philosophy 
will  be  a  system  of  absurdity  and  nonsense ;  if 
he  is  inconsistent, — tlie  less  attention  does  he 
deserve. 

Spencer  confidently  asserts  that,  once  he  could 
not  accept  Kant's  fundamental  proposition,  he 
not  only  could  not  be  a  Kantian  any  more,  but 
he  found  it  useless  even  to  become  further  ac- 
quainted with  Kant's  philosophy.  That  he  did 
not  become  a  Kantian  is  nothing  to  grieve  over 
— there  are  Kantians  enough  without  him — but 
that  he  did  not  acquaint  himself  with  Kant's 
principal  works,  and  above  all  with  the  whole 
school  that  rose  out  of  Kant,  may  be  sincerely 
regretted.  Perhaps,  as  a  new  man,  remote  from 
Continental  traditions,  he  would  have  made  a 
curious  discovery,  and  would  have  convinced 
himself  that  it  was  not  at  all  necessary  to  accept 
the  proposition  of  the  subjectivity  of  space  and 
time  in  order  to  become  a  Kantian.  And  per- 
haps with  the  frankness  and  simplicity  peculiar 
to  him,  which  is  not  afraid  to  be  taken  for 
naivete,  he  would  have  told  us  that  not  a  single 
Kantian    (Schopenhauer   excepted),   not   even 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  187 

Kant  himself,  has  ever  seriously  accepted  the 
fundamental  propositions  of  the  Transcendental 
Aesthetic,  and  therefore  has  never  made  from 
them  any  conclusions  or  deductions  whatever. 
On  the  contrary,  the  Transcendental  Aesthetic 
was  itself  a  deduction  from  another  proposition, 
that  we  have  synthetic  judgments  a  priori. 
The  original  role  of  this,  the  most  original  of  all 
theories  ever  invented,  was  to  be  a  support  and 
an  explanation  of  the  mathematical  sciences. 
It  had  never  had  an  independent,  material  con- 
tent, susceptible  of  analysis  and  investigation. 
Space  and  time  are  the  eternal  forms  of  our  per- 
ception of  the  world  :  to  this,  according  to  the 
strict  meaning  of  Kant's  teaching,  nothing  can 
be  added,  and  nothing  abated.  Spencer,  not 
having  read  the  book  to  the  end,  imagined  that 
Kant  would  begin  to  make  deductions  and  be- 
came nervous.  But  if  he  had  read  the  book 
to  the  end,  he  would  have  been  convinced  that 
Kant  had  not  made  any  deductions,  and  that  the 
whole  meaning  of  The  Critique  of  Pure  Reason 
indeed  is  that  from  the  propositions  of  the 
Transcendental  Aesthetic  no  deductions  can  be 
made.  It  is  now  about  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  since  The  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  appeared. 
No  philosophic  work  has  been  so  much  studied 
and  criticised.  And  yet  where  are  the  Kantians 
who  attempt  to  make  deductions  from  the  pro- 
position as  to  the  subjectivity  of  space  and 
time  ?  Schopenhauer  is  the  only  exception. 
He  indeed  took  the  Kantian  idea  seriously,  but 


188     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

it  may  be  said  without  exaggeration  that  of  all 
Kantians  the  least  like  Kant  was  Schopenhauer. 
The  world  is  a  veil  of  Maia.  Would  Kant 
really  have  agreed  to  such  an  interpretation  of 
his  Transcendental  Aesthetic  ?  Or  what  would 
Kant  have  said,  if  he  had  heard  that  Schopen- 
hauer, referring  to  the  same  Aesthetic  in  which 
he  saw  the  greatest  philosophic  revelation,  had 
admitted  the  possibility  of  clairvoyance  and 
magic  ?  Probably  Spencer  thought  that  Kant 
would  himself  make  all  these  deductions,  and 
therefore  threw  away  the  book  which  bound  him 
to  conclusions  so  absurd.  It  is  a  pity  that 
Spencer  was  in  such  a  hurry.  Had  he  acquainted 
himself  with  Kant,  he  would  have  been  con- 
vinced that  the  most  absurd  idea  might  serve  a 
very  useful  purpose ;  and  that  there  is  not  the 
least  necessity  to  make  from  an  idea  all  the  de- 
ductions to  which  it  may  lead.  A  man  is  a  free 
agent  and  he  can  deduce  if  he  has  a  mind  to  ;  if 
he  has  not,  he  will  not ;  and  there  is  no  necessity 
to  judge  the  character  of  a  philosophic  theory  by 
its  general  postulates.  Even  Schopenhauer  did 
not  exploit  Kant's  theory  to  the  full,  which,  if  it 
had  really  divined  the  truths  hitherto  hidden 
from  men,  would  have  not  only  put  an  end  to 
metaphysical  researches,  but  also  have  given  an 
impulse  and  a  Justification  to  perfectly  new  ex- 
periments which  from  the  previous  standpoint 
were  quite  mad  and  unimaginable.  For  if  space 
and  time  are  forms  of  our  human  perception, 
then  they  do  indeed  hide  the  ultimate  truth  from 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE     189 

us.  "While  men  knew  nothing  of  this,  and,  simple 
minded,  accepted  the  visible  reality  for  the 
actual  real,  they  could  not  of  course  dream  of 
true  knowledge.  But  from  the  moment  when 
the  truth  was  revealed  to  them  through  Kant's 
penetration,  it  is  clear  that  their  true  task  was 
to  use  every  possible  means  to  free  themselves 
from  the  harness  and  to  break  away  from  it, 
while  consolidating  all  those  judgments  which 
Kant  calls  synthetic  judgments  a  priori  for  all 
eternity. 

And  the  new,  the  critical  metaphysics,  which 
should  take  account  of  the  stupid  situation  in 
which  these  had  hitherto  found  themselves  who 
saw  in  apodeictic  judgments  eternal  truths,  had 
a  great  task  to  set  herself  :  to  get  rid  at  all  costs 
of  apodeictic  judgments,  knowing  them  for 
false.  In  other  words,  Kant's  task  should  not 
have  been  to  minimise  the  destructive  effect  of 
Hume's  scepticism,  but  to  find  a  still  more 
deadly  explosive  to  destroy  even  those  limits 
which  Hume  was  obliged  to  preserve.  It  is 
surely  evident  that  truth  lies  beyond  synthetic 
judgments  a  priori,  and  that  it  cannot  at  all 
resemble  an  a  priori  judgment,  and  in  fact 
cannot  be  like  a  judgment  of  any  kind. 

And  it  must  be  sought  by  methods  quite 
different  from  those  by  which  it  has  been  sought 
hitherto.  To  some  extent  Kant  attempted  to 
describe  how  he  represented  to  himself  the  mean- 
ing hidden  beneath  the  words  :  '  Space  and  time 
are  subjective  forms  of  perception.'     He  even 


190     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

gave  an  object-lesson,  saying  that  perhaps  there 
are  beings  who  perceive  the  world  otherwise 
than  under  the  forms  of  space  and  time  :  which 
means  that  for  such  beings  there  is  no  change. 
All  that  we  perceive  by  a  succession  of  changes, 
they  perceive  at  once.  To  them  Julius  Ctesar  is 
still  alive,  though  he  is  dead ;  to  them  the  twenty- 
fifth  century  a.d.,  w^hich  none  of  us  will  live  to 
see,  and  the  twenty-fifth  century  B.C.,  which  we 
reconstruct  with  such  difficulty  from  the  frag- 
mentary traces  of  the  past  which  have  acciden- 
tally been  preserved  to  us,  the  remote  North 
Pole,  and  even  the  stars  which  we  cannot  see 
through  the  telescope — all  are  as  accessible  to 
them  as  to  us  the  events  which  are  taking  place 
before  our  eyes.  Nevertheless  Kant,  in  spite 
of  all  temptation  to  acquire  the  knowledge  to 
which  such  beings  have  access,  notwithstand- 
ing his  profound  conviction  of  the  truth  of  his 
discovery,  did  nothing  to  dispel  the  charm  of 
forms  of  perception  and  categories  of  the  reason, 
or  to  tear  the  blinkers  from  his  eyes  and  see  all 
the  depth  of  the  mysterious  reality  hitherto 
hidden  from  us.  He  does  not  even  give  a  little 
circumstantial  explanation  why  he  considered 
such  a  task  impracticable,  and  he  confines  him- 
self to  the  dogmatic  assertion  that  man  cannot 
conceive  a  reality  beyond  space  and  time.  Why? 
It  is  a  question  of  immense  importance.  Com- 
pared with  it  all  the  problems  of  The  Critique  of 
Pure  Reason  are  secondary.  How  is  mathe- 
matics possible,  how  are  natural  sciences  pos- 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE     191 

sible  ? — these  are  not  even  questions  at  all 
compared  to  the  question  whether  it  is  possible 
to  free  ourselves  from  conventional  human 
knowledge  in  order  to  attain  the  ultimate,  all- 
embracing  truth. 

Herein  the  Kantians  display  an  even  greater 
indifference  than  Kant  himself :  they  are  even 
proud  of  their  indifference,  they  plume  them- 
selves upon  it  as  a  high  virtue.  They  assert 
that  truth  is  not  heyoncl  synthetic  judgments  a 
priori,  but  indeed  in  them  ;  and  that  it  is  not  the 
Creator  who  put  blinkers  upon  us,  but  we  our- 
selves devised  them,  and  that  any  attempt  to 
remove  them  and  look  open-eyed  upon  the  world 
is  evidence  of  perversity.  If  the  old  Serpent 
appeared  nowadays  to  seduce  the  modern 
Adam,  he  would  retire  discomfited.  Even  Eve 
herself  would  be  no  use  to  him.  The  twentieth- 
century  Eve  studies  in  a  university  and  has 
quite  sufficiently  blunted  her  natural  curiosity. 
She  can  talk  excellently  well  of  the  telcological 
point  of  view  and  is  quite  as  proof  as  man  against 
temptation.  I  do  not  share  Kant's  confidence 
that  space  and  time  are  forms  of  our  perception, 
nor  do  I  see  a  revelation  in  it.  But  if  I  had  once 
accepted  this  apocalyptic  assertion,  and  could 
think  that  there  was  some  truth  in  it,  I  would 
not  depart  from  it  to  positive  science. 

It  is  a  pity  that  Spencer  did  not  read  The 
Critique  of  Pure  Reason  to  the  end.  He  would 
have  convinced  himself  of  an  important  truth  : 
that  a  philosopl'cr  has  no  need  to  take  into 


192     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

consideration  all  the  deductions  from  his  pre- 
misses. He  need  only  have  goodwill,  and  he 
can  draw  from  the  most  paradoxical  and  sus- 
picious premisses  conclusions  which  are  fully 
conformable  to  common-sense  and  the  rules  of 
decency.  And  since  Kant's  will  was  as  good  as 
Spencer's,  they  would  have  agreed  perfectly  in 
their  deductions,  though  they  were  so  far  apart 
from  each  other  in  their  premisses. 

A  Tacit  Assumption 

Schopenhauer  was  the  first  philosopher  to 
ask  the  value  of  life.  And  he  gave  a  definite 
answer  :  in  life  there  is  much  more  suffering 
than  joy,  therefore  life  must  be  renounced.  I 
must  add  that  strictly  speaking  he  asked  not 
only  the  value  of  life,  but  also  the  value  of  joy 
and  suffering.  And  to  this  question  he  gave  an 
equally  definite  answer.  According  to  his  teach- 
ing joy  is  always  negative,  suffering  always 
positive.  Therefore  by  its  essence  joy  cannot 
compensate  for  suffering. 

In  all  this  philosophical  construction,  both  in 
formulating  and  answering  the  questions,  there 
is  one  tacit,  particularly  curious,  and  interest- 
ing and  unexpressed  postulate.  Schopenhauer 
starts  from  the  assumption  that  his  valuation  of 
life,  joy  and  suffering,  in  order  to  have  the  right 
to  be  called  truth,  must  contain  something 
universal,  by  virtue  of  which  it  will  in  the  last 
resort  coincide  with  the  valuation  of  all  other 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  198 

people.  Whence  did  he  derive  this  idea  ? 
Psychologically  the  train  of  Schopenhauer's 
thought  is  intelligible  and  easily  explained. 
He  was  used  to  the  scientific  formulation  and 
solution  of  problems,  and  he  transferred  to  the 
question  which  engaged  him  methods  of  investi- 
gation which  by  general  consent  usually  conduct 
us  to  the  truth.  He  did  not  verify  his  premiss 
ad  hoc,  and  usually  it  is  impossible  to  verify  a 
premiss  every  time  that  a  need  arises  for  it.  It 
is  not  even  becoming  to  exhibit  it,  to  speak  of  it. 
It  is  understood.  If  the  fundamental  sign  of 
any  truth  is  its  being  universal  and  obligatory, 
then  in  the  given  case  the  true  answer  to  the 
question  of  the  value  of  life  can  only  be  some- 
thing which  will  be  absolutely  admissible  by  all 
men  to  all  creatures  with  a  mind.  So  Schopen- 
hauer would  probably  have  answered,  if  any 
one  had  questioned  his  right  to  formulate  in 
such  a  general  way  the  question  of  the  value 
of  life. 

Still  Schopenhauer  would  hardly  be  right. 
This,  by  the  way,  is  being  made  clear  by  the 
objections  which  are  put  forward  by  his  oppo- 
nents. He  is  accused  because  his  very  state- 
ment of  the  question  presupposes  a  subjective 
point  of  view — eudsemonism. 

The  question  of  the  value  of  life,  people 
object,  is  not  at  all  decided  by  whether  in  the 
sum  life  gives  more  joy  than  pain  or  vice  versa. 
Life  may  be  deeply  painful  and  devoid  of  joy, 
life  may  in  itself  be  one  compact  horror,  and 

N 


194     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

still   be   valuable.     Schopenhauer's   philosophy 
was  not  discussed  in  his  lifetime,  so  that  he 
could  not  answer  his  opponents.     But,  if  he 
were  still  alive,  would  he  accept  these  objections 
and  renounce  his  pessimism  ?     I  am  convinced 
that  he  would  not.     At  the  same  time  I  am 
convinced  that  his  opponents  would  be  no  less 
firm  and  would  go  on  repeating  :  '  The  question 
is  not  one  of  happiness  or  suffering.     We  value 
life  by  a  quite  different  and  independent  stan- 
dard.'    And  in  the  discussion  it  would  perhaps 
become  clear  to  the  disputants  that  the  pre- 
miss mentioned  above,  which  both  accepted  as 
requiring    no    proof    and    understood    without 
explanation,  does    indeed    require    proofs    and 
explanations,    but    is    provided    with    neither. 
To  one  man  the  eudaemonistic  point  of  view  is 
ultimate  and  decisive,  to  another  contemptible 
and  degrading,  and  he  seeks  the  meaning  of  life 
in  a  higher,  ethical  or  aesthetic  purpose.    There 
are  also  people  who  love  sorrow  and  pain,  and 
see  in  them  the  justification  and  the  source  of 
the  depth  and  importance  of  life.     Nor  do  I 
mention  the  fact  that  when  the  sum-totals  of 
life   are  reckoned   different  accountants   reach 
different    and    directly    contradictory    results, 
or   that    insoluble    questions    arise    concerning 
these,  or  other  details.     Schopenhauer  for  in- 
stance finds,  as  we  have  seen,  that  sufferings  are 
positive,  joys  negative.     And  hence  he  concludes 
that  it  is  not  worth  while  to  submit  to  the  least 
unpleasantness  for  the  sake  of  the  greatest  joy. 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE     195 

What  answer  can  be  made  ?  How  can  he  be 
convinced  of  the  contrary  ? 

Nevertheless  the  fact  is  obvious  :  many  people 
regard  the  matter  in  quite  a  different  light. 
For  the  sake  of  a  single  happiness  they  are  ready 
to  endure  a  great  many  serious  hardships.  In  a 
word,  Schopenhauer's  premiss  is  quite  unjusti- 
fied, and  not  only  cannot  be  accepted  as  an 
indubitable  truth,  but  must  be  qualified  as  an 
indubitable  error.  It  is  impossible  to  be  certain 
beforehand  that  to  the  question  of  the  value  of 
life  a  single,  universally  valid  answer  can  be 
given.  So  here  we  meet  with  an  extraordinarily 
curious  case  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  theory 
of  knowledge.  It  appears  that  by  the  very 
essence  of  the  matter  no  uniform  answer  can  be 
given  to  one  of  the  most  important  questions, 
perhaps  the  most  important  question  of  philo- 
sophy. If  you  are  asked  what  is  life,  good  or 
evil,  you  are  obliged  to  say  that  life  is  both 
good  and  evil ;  or  something  independent  of 
good  and  evil ;  or  a  mixture  of  good  and  evil  in 
which  there  is  more  good  than  evil,  or  more  evil 
than  good. 

And,  I  repeat,  each  of  these  answers,  although 
they  logically  quite  exclude  each  other,  has  the 
right  to  claim  the  title  of  truth  ;  for  if  it  has  not 
power  enough  to  make  the  other  answers  bow 
down  before  it,  at  all  events  it  has  the  necessary 
strength  to  repel  its  opponents'  attacks  and  to 
defend  its  sovereign  rights.  Instead  of  a  sole 
and  omnipotent  truth  before  which  the  weak  and 


196     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

helpless  errors  tremble,  you  have  before  you 
a  whole  line  of  perfectly  independent  truths 
excellently  armed  and  defended.  Instead  of 
absolutism,  you  have  a  feudal  system.  And  the 
vassals  are  so  firmly  ensconced  in  their  castles 
that  an  experienced  eye  can  see  at  once  that 
they  are  impregnable. 

I  took  for  my  instance  Schopenhauer's  doc- 
trine of  the  value  of  life.  But  many  philosophic 
doctrines,  although  they  issue  from  the  premiss 
of  one  sovereign  truth,  display  examples  of  the 
plurality  of  truths.  It  is  usually  believed  that 
one  should  study  the  history  of  philosophy  in 
order  to  be  palpably  convinced  that  mankind 
has  gradually  mastered  its  delusions  and  is  now 
on  the  high  road  to  ultimate  truth.  My  opinion 
is  that  the  history  of  philosophy  must  bring 
every  impartial  person,  who  is  not  infected  by 
modern  prejudices,  to  a  directly  opposite  con- 
clusion. There  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  whole 
series  of  questions  exists,  like  that  of  the  value 
of  life,  which  by  their  very  essence  do  not  admit 
of  a  uniform  solution.  To  this  testimony  is 
often  borne  by  men  whose  very  last  concern  is  to 
curtail  the  royal  prerogative  of  sovereign  truth  : 
Natorp  confidently  asserts  that  Aristotle  not 
only  did  not  understand  but  could  not  under- 
stand Plato.  '  Der  tiefere  Grund  ist  die  ewige 
Unfahigkeit  des  Dogmatismus  sich  in  der 
Gesichtspunkt  der  kritischen  Philosophic  iiber- 
haupt  zu  versetzen.'  '  Eternal  incapabihty ' 
— what  words  !     And  used  not  of  any  common- 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE     197 

place  person,  but  of  the  greatest  human  genius 
known  to  us,  of  Aristotle.  Had  Natorp  been  a 
little  more  inquisitive,  '  eternal  incapability ' 
of  that  kind  should  have  worried  him  at  least 
as  much  as  Plato's  philosophy,  on  which  he 
wrote  a  large  book.  For  here  is  evidently  a 
great  riddle.  Different  people,  according  to 
the  different  constitution  of  their  souls,  are  while 
5^et  in  their  mother's  womb  destined  to  have 
different  philosophies.  It  reminds  me  of  the 
famous  Calvinistic  view  of  predetermination. 
Just  as  from  before  birth  God  has  destined  some 
to  damnation,  others  to  salvation  ;  so  to  some 
it  is  given  and  from  others  withheld,  to  know 
the  truth. 

And  not  Natorp  alone  argues  thus.  It  would 
be  true  to  say  all  modern  philosophers,  who 
are  always  contending  with  each  other  and 
suspecting  each  other  of  '  eternal  incapability.' 
Philosophers  have  not  the  same  means  of  com- 
pelling conviction  as  the  representatives  of 
other  positive  sciences :  they  cannot  force 
every  one  to  undeniable  conclusions.  Their 
ultima  ratio,  their  personal  opinion,  their  private 
conviction,  their  last  refuge,  is  the  '  eternal 
incapability  '  of  their  opponents  to  understand 
them.  Here  the  tragic  dilemma  is  clear  to  all. 
Of  two  things  one :  either  renounce  philosophy 
entirely,  or  allow  that  that  which  Natorp  calls 
the  '  eternal  incapability  '  is  not  a  vice  or  a 
weakness,  but  a  great  virtue  and  power  hitherto 
unappreciated    and    misunderstood.    Aristotle, 


198      THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

indeed,  was  organically  incapable  of  under- 
standing Plato,  just  as  Plato  could  not  have 
understood  Aristotle,  just  as  neither  of  them 
could  understand  the  sceptics  or  the  sophists, 
just  as  Leibnitz  could  not  understand  Spinoza, 
as  Schopenhauer  could  not  understand  Hegel, 
and  so  on  till  our  riotous  modern  days  when 
no  philosopher  can  understand  any  one  except 
himself.  Besides,  philosophers  do  not  aspire  to 
mutual  understanding  and  unity,  but  usually  it 
is  with  the  utmost  reluctance  that  they  observe 
in  themselves  similarity  to  their  predecessors. 
When  the  similarity  of  Schopenhauer's  teaching 
to  that  of  Spinoza  was  pointed  out  to  him,  he 
said  Pereant  qui  ante  nos  nostra  dixerint.  But 
representatives  of  the  other  positive  sciences 
understand  each  other,  rarely  dispute,  and  never 
argue  by  referring  to  the  '  eternal  incapability  ' 
of  their  confreres.  Perhaps  in  philosophy  this 
chaotic  state  of  affairs  and  this  unique  argument 
are  part  of  the  craft.  Perhaps  in  this  realm  it  is 
necessary  that  Aristotle  should  not  understand 
Plato  and  should  not  accept  him,  that  the 
materialists  should  always  be  at  war  with  the 
idealists,  the  sceptics  with  the  dogmatists.  In 
other  words,  the  premiss  with  which  Schopen- 
hauer began  the  investigation  into  the  value 
of  life,  and  which  as  we  have  shown  he  took 
without  verification  from  the  representatives 
of  positive  science,  though  perfectly  applicable 
in  its  proper  sphere,  is  quite  out  of  place  in 
philosophy.     And  indeed,  though  they  never 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  199 

speak  of  it,  philosophers  value  their  own  personal 
convictions  much  more  highly  than  universally 
valid  truth.  The  impossibility  of  discovering 
one  sole  philosophic  truth  may  alarm  any  one 
but  the  philosophers  themselves,  who,  so  soon 
as  they  have  worked  out  their  own  convictions, 
take  not  the  smallest  trouble  to  secure  general 
recognition  for  them.  They  are  only  busy  with 
getting  rid  of  their  vassal  dependence  and 
acquiring  sovereign  rights  for  themselves.  The 
question  whether  there  will  be  other  sovereigns 
by  their  side  hardly  concerns  them  at  all. 

The  history  of  philosophy  should  be  so 
expounded  that  this  tendency  should  be  clearly 
manifest.  This  would  spare  us  from  many 
prejudices,  and  would  clear  the  way  for  new 
and  important  inquiries.  Kant,  who  shared 
the  opinion  that  truth  is  the  same  for  all,  was 
convinced  that  metaphysics  must  be  a  science 
a  priori,  and  since  it  cannot  be  a  science  a  'prion, 
must  therefore  cease  to  exist.  If  the  history 
of  philosophy  had  been  expounded  and  under- 
stood differently  in  his  day,  it  would  never  have 
entered  his  mind  thus  to  impugn  the  rights  of 
metaphysics.  And  probably  he  would  not  have 
been  vexed  by  the  contradictoriness  or  the  lack 
of  proof  in  the  teachings  of  various  schools  of 
metaphysics.  It  cannot  be  otherwise,  neither 
should  it  be.  The  interest  of  mankind  is  not  to 
put  an  end  to  the  variety  of  philosophic  doctrines 
but  to  allow  the  perfectly  natural  phenomenon 
wide  and  deep  development.     Philosophers  have 


200     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

always  had  an  instinctive  longing  for  this : 
that  is  why  they  are  so  troublesome  to  the 
historian  of  philosophy. 


The  First  and  the  Last 

In  the  first  volume  of  Human,  All  too  Human, 
which  Nietzsche  wrote  at  the  very  beginning  of 
his  disease,  when  he  was  still  far  from  final 
victory  and  chiefly  told  of  his  defeats,  there  is 
the  following  remarkable,  though  half-involun- 
tary confession :  '  The  complete  irresponsibility  of 
Man  for  his  actions  and  his  being  is  the  bitterest 
drop  for  the  man  of  knowledge  to  drink,  since  he 
has  been  accustomed  to  see  in  responsibility  and 
duty  the  very  patent  of  his  title  to  manhood.' 

Much  bitterness  has  the  inquiring  spirit  to 
swallow,  but  the  bitterest  of  all  is  in  the  know- 
ledge that  his  moral  qualities,  his  readiness  to 
fulfil  his  duty  ungrudgingly,  gives  him  no  pre- 
ference over  other  men.  He  thought  he  was  a 
man  of  noble  rank,  even  a  prince  of  the  blood, 
crowned  with  a  crown,  and  the  other  men  boorish 
peasantry — but  he  is  just  the  same,  a  peasant, 
the  same  as  all  the  rest.  His  patent  of  nobility 
was  that  for  which  he  fulfilled  his  most  arduous 
duty  and  made  sacrifices  ;  in  it  he  saw  the 
meaning  of  life.  And  when  it  is  suddenly  re- 
vealed that  there  is  no  provision  made  for  titles 
or  patents,  it  is  a  horrible  catastrophe,  a  cata- 
clysm— and  life  loses  all  meaning.  Evidently 
the    conviction    expressed   with    such   moving 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE     201 

frankness  in  these  words  was  with  Nietzsche 
a  second  nature,  which  he  could  not  master  all 
his  life  long.  What  is  the  Superman  but  a  title, 
a  patent,  giving  the  right  to  be  called  a  noble 
among  the  canaille  ?  What  is  the  pathos  of 
distance  and  all  Nietzsche's  teaching  of  ranks  ? 
The  formula,  beyond  good  and  evil,  was  by  no 
means  so  all-destructive  as  at  first  sight  it 
seemed.  On  the  contrary,  by  erasing  certain 
laws  graven  on  the  tables  of  mankind  of  old, 
that  formula  as  it  were  revealed  other  com- 
mandments, obliterated  by  time,  and  therefore 
invisible  to  many. 

All  morality,  all  good  in  and  for  itself  is  re- 
jected, but  the  patent  of  nobility  grows  more 
precious  until  it  becomes,  if  not  the  only  value, 
at  least  the  chief.  Life  loses  its  meaning  once 
titles  and  ranks  are  destroyed,  once  he  is  de- 
prived of  the  right  to  hold  his  head  high,  to 
throw  out  his  chest,  his  belly  even,  and  to  look 
with  contempt  upon  those  about  him. 

In  order  to  show  to  what  extent  the  doctrine 
of  rank  has  become  attached  to  the  human  soul, 
I  would  recall  the  words  of  the  Gospel  about 
the  first  and  last.  Christ,  who  seemed  to  speak 
in  a  language  utterly  new,  who  taught  men  to 
despise  earthly  blessings — riches,  fame,  honours, 
who  so  easily  yielded  Ca}sar  his  due^  because  he 
thought  that  only  Caesar  would  find  it  useful — 
Christ  himself,  when  he  spoke  to  men,  did  not 
think  it  possible  to  take  away  from  them  tlieir 
hope  of  distinction.     '  The  first  shall  be  last.' 


202     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

What  will  there  be  first  and  second  there,  too  ? 
Yes,  so  it  stands  in  the  Gospel.  Is  it  because 
there  is  indeed  in  the  division  of  men  into  ranks 
something  original  and  warrantable,  or  is  it 
because  Christ  who  spoke  to  humankind  could 
not  but  use  human  words  ?  It  may  be  that, 
but  for  that  promise,  and  generally  the  series 
of  promises  of  rewards,  accessible  to  the  human 
understanding,  the  Gospel  would  not  have  ful- 
filled its  great  historic  mission,  it  would  have 
passed  unnoticed  on  the  earth,  and  no  one 
would  have  detected  or  recognised  in  it  the 
Evangel.  Christ  knew  that  men  could  renounce 
all  things,  save  the  right  to  superiority  alone,  to 
superiority  over  one's  neighbours,  to  that  which 
Nietzsche  calls  '  the  patent  of  nobility.'  With- 
out that  superiority  men  of  a  certain  kind  cannot 
live.  They  become  what  the  Germans  so  appro- 
priately call  Vogelfrei,  deprived  of  the  protec- 
tion of  the  laws,  since  the  laws  are  the  only 
source  of  their  right.  Rude,  nonsensical,  dis- 
gusting reality — against  which,  I  repeat,  their 
only  defence  is  the  patent  of  nobility,  the  un- 
written charter — approaches  them  closer  and 
closer,  with  more  and  more  menace  and  impor- 
tunacy,  and  claims  its  right.  'If  you  are  the 
same  as  all  other  men,'  it  says,  '  take  your  ex- 
perience of  life  from  me,  fulfil  your  trivial  obliga- 
tions, worse  than  that,  accept  from  me  the  fines 
and  reprimands  to  which  the  rank  and  file  are 
subject,  even  to  corporal  punishment.'  How 
could  he  accept  these  degrading  conditions  who 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE     203 

had  been  used  to  think  he  had  the  right  to  carry 
his  head  high,  to  be  proud  and  independent  ? 
Nietzsche  tries  with  dull  submissiveness  to 
swallow  the  horrible  bitterness  of  his  confes- 
sion, but  courage  and  endurance,  even  his 
courage  and  endurance,  are  not  enough  for  this 
his  greatest  and  most  terrible  task.  He  cannot 
bear  the  horror  of  a  life  deprived  of  rights 
and  defences  :  he  seeks  again  for  power  and 
authority  which  would  protect  him  and  give 
him  his  lost  rights  again.  He  will  not  rest 
until  he  receives  under  another  name  a  restitutio 
in  integrum  of  all  the  rights  which  had  pre- 
viously been  his. 

And  surely  not  Nietzsche  alone  acted  thus. 
The  whole  history  of  ethics,  the  whole  history 
of  philosophy  is  to  no  small  degree  the  incessant 
search  for  prerogative  and  privilege,  patents  and 
charters.  The  Christians — Tolstoi  and  Dosto- 
evsky — do  not  in  the  least  differ  from  the  enemy 
of  Christianity,  Nietzsche.  The  humble  Jew, 
Spinoza,  and  the  meek  pagan,  Socrates,  the 
idealist  Plato,  and  the  idealist  Aristotle,  the 
founders  of  the  newest,  noblest  and  loftiest 
systems,  Kant,  Fichte,  Hegel,  even  Schopen- 
hauer, the  pessimist,  all  as  one  man  seek  a 
charter,  a  charter,  a  charter.  Evidently  life  on 
earth  without  a  charter  becomes  for  the  '  best ' 
men  a  horrible  nightmare  and  an  intolerable 
torment.  Even  the  founder  of  Christianity,  who 
so  easily  renounced  all  privileges,  considered  it 
possible  to  preserve  this  privilege  for  his  dis- 


204     THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

ciples,  and  perhaps — who  knows  ? — for  himself 
too. 

Whereas  if  Nietzsche  and  those  other  philo- 
sophers had  been  able  resolutely  to  renounce 
titles,  ranks,  and  honours,  which  are  distributed 
not  only  by  morality,  but  by  all  the  other 
Sanhedrim,  real  and  imaginary,  which  are  set 
over  man  ;  if  they  could  have  drunk  this  cup 
to  the  dregs,  then  they  might  have  known,  seen, 
and  heard  much  that  was  suspected  by  none  of 
them  before.  Long  since  men  have  known  that 
the  road  to  knowledge  lies  by  way  of  a  great 
renunciation.  Neither  righteousness  nor  genius 
gives  a  man  privilege  above  others.  He  is  de- 
prived, for  ever  deprived,  of  the  protection  of 
earthly  laws.  There  are  no  laws.  To-day  he 
is  a  king,  to  -  morrow  a  slave  ;  to  -  day  God, 
to-morrow  a  worm;  to-day  first,  to-morrow 
last.  And  the  worm  crushed  by  him  to-day 
will  be  God,  his  god  to-morrow.  All  the 
measures  and  balances  by  which  men  are  dis- 
tinguished one  from  another  are  defaced  for 
ever,  and  there  is  no  certainty  that  the  place 
a  man  once  occupied  will  still  be  his.  And  all 
philosophers  have  known  this  ;  Nietzsche,  too, 
knew  it,  and  by  experience.  He  was  the  friend, 
the  ally,  and  the  collaborator  of  the  great  Wagner, 
the  herald  of  a  new  era  upon  earth  ;  and  later, 
he  grovelled  in  the  dust,  broken  and  crushed. 
And  a  second  time  this  thing  happened  to  him. 
When  he  had  finished  Zaraihustra,  he  became 
insane,  more  exactly,  he  became  half-idiot.     It 


THE  THEORY  OF  KNO^VLEDGE    205 

is  true  he  carried  the  secret  of  the  second  fall 
with  him  to  the  grave.  Yet  something  has 
reached  us,  for  all  his  sister's  efforts  to  conceal 
from  carnal  eyes  the  change  that  had  befallen 
him.  And  now  we  ask :  Is  the  essence  of  life 
really  in  the  rank,  the  charter,  the  patent  of 
nobility  ?  And  can  the  words  of  Christ  be 
understood  in  their  literal  sense  ?  Are  not  all 
the  Sanhedrim  set  over  man,  and  as  it  were 
giving  meaning  to  his  life,  mere  fictions,  useful 
and  even  necessary  in  certain  moments  of  life, 
but  pernicious  and  dangerous,  to  say  no  more, 
when  the  circumstances  are  changed  ?  Does 
not  life,  the  real  and  desirable  life,  which  men 
have  sought  for  thousands  of  years,  begin  there 
where  there  is  neither  first  nor  last,  righteous 
or  sinner,  genius  or  incapable  ?  Is  not  the 
pursuit  of  recognition,  of  superiority,  of  patents 
and  charters,  of  rank,  that  which  prevents  man 
from  seeing  life  with  its  hidden  miracles  ?  And 
must  man  really  seek  protection  in  the  College 
of  Heralds,  or  has  he  another  power  that  time 
cannot  destroy  ?  One  may  be  a  good,  able, 
learned,  gifted  man,  even  a  man  of  genius,  but 
to  demand  in  return  any  privileges  whatsoever, 
is  to  betray  goodness  and  ability,  and  talent  and 
genius,  and  the  greatest  hopes  of  mankind.  The 
last  on  earth  will  nowhere  be  first.  .  .  . 


Printerl  by  T.  and  A.  Constable,  Printers  to  His  Majesty 
at  the  Edinburgh  University  Press,  Scotland 


UUbUUintniM  nLun 


AA    000  806  946    o 


